What makes a video game fun?

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Xarpho's Return

Xarpho's Return

has sort of lost it
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Sep 29, 2022
I've been mulling around a video game idea inside my head, mostly involving you traveling from place to place as a tourist and using real U.S. maps as a reference. (It's more complicated than that.) But I couldn't figure out how to make the core gameplay FUN. It would be a comfy game at best, but even those are kind of fun because there's always more stuff to unlock and grow.

What makes a game actually fun to play? Is it the storyline, growing bigger and more powerful, risk and reward? I've never thought about things that way.
 
if i have to do the same task over and over again i will drop the game after 5 minutes.

you could do multiple mini games (like photographing some shit with some grade/point system) and introduce some skillsets as unlockables with each new location to keep the gameplay fresh and varied. story should be optional and skippable, give me a small to-do list and the place where i would have to go.

if you let me fly a plane inside the twin towers i will instantly buy your game full price.
 
Well, there's obviously different types of fun, like Tetris is fun because you're interacting with these little blocks and you get a distinct positive visual reward as you figure out solutions to clear out lines. So it's a "figure out how to fill out these holes and then you get a little visual stimulus as a treat." But, the major point is that the gameplay loop reinforces itself elegantly, I think that's the most important part. If there are aspects of the loop that 'shit the bed' and are an active detriment to the other aspects of the loop, that's usually the biggest problem.

So, in your case you need to identify the loop involved and how it reinforces and justifies itself. Do you get to interact with interesting, charming characters? Do you get stimulating plot developments? Do these feed into one another properly? I think the obvious fun aspect in what you imply to essentially be a 'tourism simulator' is that you get to interact with the tourist hotspots in interesting ways, like meet new people, observe curious scenes as a bystander, that sort of thing. An obvious example that comes to mind might be as a subplot that you're accidentally following some kind of major criminal activity network, that might be amusing. But, the principle point is that you need to figure out what's actually interesting on its own about a "tourism simulator" and build around that.

Oh, yeah, and this is pretty good advice too.
herefortheactualthreads said:
if i have to do the same task over and over again i will drop the game after 5 minutes(...) (...)If you let me fly a plane inside the twin towers i will instantly buy your game full price.
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EDIT: typos, etc
 
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it would have to be a radar chart that i'm too lazy to try and make. Not all fun games are fun for the same reason and a fun game isn't fun for everyone.

For the outline of your game I think the easiest way to make it fun for me is to introduce psuedo-speedrun mechanics creative ways of skipping queues of other tourists, ruining travel vloggers videos, taking shortcuts through security restricted areas etc. think Hitman but instead of assassinating people you're just dicking around with the crowds of npcs with the end goal of getting a good photo of the attraction. but that's me just destroying the vision you have for your game, and the experience of people who are genuinely interested in whatever sites you decided to put in the game.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
What makes a game actually fun to play?
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Since it would take too long to write what can make a game fun, lets focus on your game idea.

Storywise you could try to either tie it to something historical (Manifest Destiny) or maybe a parallel story about a serial killer that was at the places you visit. As for the gameplay could take notes from arcade games and introduce photography as the main gameplay loop with time limits and a scoring system. Driving itself could be a mechanic, maybe like Outrun.

But if it's supposed to be a comfy game maybe half of the game could be something like Unpacking for all the souvenirs and photos and the other half running around the places, talking to people, minigames etc.
 
Sense of achievement + "controlled" social media (as opposed to uncontrolled i.e social media algorithms or corporate mass-banning) where there are a set of social conventions for how to behave in a game beyond what is stated in the rules/lack thereof.
 
Obviously subjective, but the core of most good games is a goal and a sense of progression.

You want a goal since it justifies spending time on the game, otherwise why not just get something that is immediately satisfying like Doom Scrolling?

Sense of progression is important because it keeps the goal in sight. If you feel like you don't achieve shit you'll move to the next game.

Of course you want that once players reach the goal they either exchange it for a greater one while feeling satisfied for it, or reach the end of the game and feel a sense of achievement.
 
Something that makes my brain go brrrrrrrr or something that pulls me in through storytelling, artstyle or just general vibe.

One of my top ten games of all time is Okami - it is visually beautiful, the characters are simple but enjoyable, the music is fantastic and the gameplay loop is mostly satisfying. It's a bit of a "girly" game because you are cleansing the world of evil through painting the world back to its former beauty, and by feeding the animals or fulfilling prayers for NPCs.
It's goofy at times but it can turn around and give you stakes that feel dire.
I forget how many times I've played and finished it by now, but I own it on ps2, ps3 and PC. So surely there's something that this game does right, to keep me coming back every so often to fully clear it again.

Another game (or games, rather) is God of War. Not the cucked 2018 version but the original trilogy. It is gory, over the top action and there's lots of nudity. Kratos is an unrepentant asshole in the way the game portrays him outside of him interacting with his family (and Pandora in GOW3), he's a misogynist and he's a violent, angry man.
The gameplay is satisfying - a spectacle fighter where you CAN choose to play it "perfectly", executing long combos by dashing, parrying and juggling enemies. All of the weapons across the original trilogy as fun to use. The enemy variety is so-so, greek mythological creatures that come in a bunch of recolours across the franchise.
Visually the games still hold up. The ps2 versions have clearly aged but the HD collection for the ps3 improves upon the graphics without sacrificing the feel of the originals. God of War 3 is STUNNING even when compared to newer games.

Others have said it before me, but the PS3 is when "high fidelity visuals" hit their peak. I don't need UE5 slop when I can enjoy God of War 3, or even the gamecube version of Resident Evil 1, with beautiful graphics that feel timeless.
Those two examples fulfil my criteria of what makes a game fun but in their own different ways. I could find other titles that either make my brain go brrr or keeps me entranced due to vibe, but I shan't.
 
I Know 孤独のせい said:
But if it's supposed to be a comfy game maybe half of the game could be something like Unpacking for all the souvenirs and photos and the other half running around the places, talking to people, minigames etc.
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I wanted to try to capture the feeling of a summer trip with the family (in the past) or even my own more recent solo trips. Visit cities, big and small. Stop at rural gas stations and truck stops, each with their own personality. Go camping. Visit anything, from airboats on the Florida swamp to ice cream factories. Probably set in the late 1990s to focus more on paper maps rather than GPS and electronics.
 
Dante Alighieri said:
I know it when I see it, but there has to be genuine passion and enjoyment from the creator.
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Nothing turns me off on a game more than a creator having spite or hatred towards the video game media, or worse, the player.
 
PetiteFeet said:
Nothing turns me off on a game more than a creator having spite or hatred towards the video game media, or worse, the player.
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Yes, respect me the player and my time, make something you would enjoy playing, and you'll find players. If you enjoy making it and playing it you will have people enjoy playing it too.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
What makes a game actually fun to play?
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Does game has enjoyable?

In all seriousness though, if you don't already know the answer to that question, that's really hard for someone else to answer without asking you for fucktons of details, seeing all of your design docs, and what state your game is in. I have barely more than zero experience in game dev, so I'll largely be talking as a potential customer/player and what I think makes games "fun":

What is the core gameplay loop, and what are the skills that are being trained and tested? That will tell you what parts of the gameplay need to be fun, because the gameplay is the most important thing since it should be what players will engage with the most. Figure out how to make that core loop feel good through explicit and subtextual rewards, and thatll be the hard part done. I really fucking enjoyed VOIN even in its original v0.0.1 demo because the core combat was already so fucking fun even in prototype (and the loot system was just barely good enough) that even the at that time nearly purposeless combat still almost carried the game by itself.

Story should in some way directly relate to the gameplay (if you have a story). Story beats will amplify gameplay beats if they work together. AMC Squad has one of the playable characters fucking die at the end of chapter 4: Losing a character and all of their unique gameplay elements permanently isn't "fun", but the really solid storytelling which justifies his death makes it a sort of narrative ""fun"".

The last significant thing off the top of my head is flair and 'nice little details'. High-quality animations, punchy sounds, little sprinkles and special effects on the UI or on attacks or whatever your game has that people will be looking at and listening to lots. I've been playing KILLER INSTINCT and the fact you can play the game's theme song using the menus is one of those "hey, they gave a shit, that's really cool" little things. I would only caution against going too far, for which I'd use a game like Balatro as a personal example: that game has SO MANY extra little effects, SO MUCH ui reactivity, and such aggressive over-animation, that watching videos makes my skin crawl and feels like being overstimulated (I'm told the guy who made it is some big wig who spearheaded addictive game design for gambling machines, which I would totally believe). There's a fine line of what's too much, and that depends on the kind of game, the tone, the rest of the visuals.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
I wanted to try to capture the feeling of a summer trip with the family (in the past) or even my own more recent solo trips. Visit cities, big and small. Stop at rural gas stations and truck stops, each with their own personality. Go camping. Visit anything, from airboats on the Florida swamp to ice cream factories. Probably set in the late 1990s to focus more on paper maps rather than GPS and electronics.
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Oh, I just thought of this, I would also remember that somebody playing a game should always be able to do something that seems obvious and intuitive based on previous events.
"Okay, I'm playing Chainsaw Nigger Death Simulator, and so I got my badass chainsaw and I can tear through everything I can see... except this random ass wall?! I can tear up every other wall I've seen up to this point, and this one looks like fucking wood! Why can't my chainsaw chop this one up?!"
Don't cuck out your players from taking 1+1 and not actually letting them finish the equation to get 2. If you can have your guy pee on things, you should probably make it so pissing on at least one thing in the game is actually pretty useful.
So, for your particular example... you should absolutely be able to actually use the gas stations to fill up your car, bare minimum. Maybe you can find easter eggs inside the gas station. Or when you're camping, there's similar little treasure hunts, and you can roast marshmallows.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
you traveling from place to place as a tourist and using real U.S. maps as a reference. (It's more complicated than that.) But I couldn't figure out how to make the core gameplay FUN. It would be a comfy game at best, but even those are kind of fun because there's always more stuff to unlock and grow.
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Oh, also, look at games like Life is Strange. Any of them, really. Or DONTNOD games in general. They could be considered "comfy" games, but in my opinion they do it in the worst way possible.
I'm not interested in the characters. Chloe is the biggest cunt in video games of all time, I don't care about Max at ALL and every other character in the game are either fluff that you can general disregard as a whole, they do not matter outside of one or two interactions through gameplay. They have no impact on the story being told, they are largely annoying and not just because they are teenagers and I'm an old lady, they contribute nothing valuable or meaningful.
The sequel feels like it's a parody or satire, except they are earnest about the story they're telling. It's full of contemporary political allegories that aged like milk the second they released the game/episodes.
I haven't played or watched someone play True Colours or Double Exposure, and I don't intend to.

If you want to tell a story that's supposed to grip the player, make sure it feels timeless (so no memes or internet slang that will age within a month) and engaging. You CAN have a setting of the 1990's, including slang or references to popculture from the time, I feel that that's different from, say, a game full of tiktok memes that are only funny to literal fortnite children.
If you want to focus on the characters, make them relatable without being potentially controversial. No politics that take a clear stance for either side of the political spectrum, no gender identity bullshit and so forth.

Gameplay can take second stage if it isn't obnoxious and tiresome. If you can stand to play it repeatedly over hours without you gagging, your players would hopefully feel the same way. Walking simulators CAN be fun and engaging games, but replayability is relatively low IMHO. A title that many people consider to be "art" is Journey. I recently played it myself and I just didn't understand it. Sure, it was beautiful but it was extremely simple and the story being told didn't grip me at all. My total playtime might've been around 1-2 hours, and I forget how much money I spent on it, but I can't see myself returning to 100% achievement it.

On the other hand, would the gameplay be like Pokemon snap, a railshooter minus the shooting? Or something else entirely?
Outer Wilds is a game that I could recommend to people but it is very hit/miss due to the story being told paired with the gameplay. I don't want to spoil it in case you or other readers of the thread haven't played it, but it's an experience you can only have once even if it's a lot longer than other "art" games or walking simulators.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
I wanted to try to capture the feeling of a summer trip with the family (in the past) or even my own more recent solo trips. Visit cities, big and small. Stop at rural gas stations and truck stops, each with their own personality. Go camping. Visit anything, from airboats on the Florida swamp to ice cream factories. Probably set in the late 1990s to focus more on paper maps rather than GPS and electronics.
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From reading that, my first impulse is that you should focus on having to physically interact with a lot of the shit you just mentioned. Little physics and conversation minigames.

Unfolding your map crease by crease. Tuning your car radio. Maintaining mozzie nets on your open car windows In the swamps. Doing math to get as much food as you can from the gas station with your limited daily spend. Ask a dodgy prick for directions or help changing a tire, and have it be a tense conversation setpiece.

If it's about the experience of going on a road trip, focus on the minutiae of that experience, gamifying mundane actions. If you can make getting the gas nozzle into your tank inlet "fun" then you're on the right track, and those gameplay bits can be nicely peppered between story happenings.
 
For a road trip game, you've got to have unique things to see. The game should foreshadow these sights, so the player can start to think, "I want to go there and see that!" And there should be some record of the player's trip to look back on.

Every activity should have some gameplay benefit. If you want the player to stop at a diner and have a meal, there should be something to gain by doing so. Otherwise, he might just skip the diner, even if you put a lot of work into it.
 
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