What makes a good game
by Pat Wilson · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 12/29/2000 (11:21 am) · 21 replies
I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about what makes a good game. I've come up with a lot of what doesn't make a good game, and some things that do. But it's like trying to nail Jello to the wall. Quake 1 was a good game, it's still a good game. It's still played quite a bit, and is (arguably) THE game for deathmatch (which I wholeheartidly agree with) Now, Quake 3...I got the demo, and I really wasn't impressed. The graphics are wonderful. Smooth, detailed, innovative. Good animations, good levels...they have, if you will, the dream-team over at id, but the game didn't click with me at least. Maybe my tastes have changed since I played Quake 1 (And whenever I say Quake 1, I mean GL Quake/Quakeworld) So I thought maybe Quake 1 was ok, because it was kind of first in the pack, but it takes more then just good deathmatch to keep people's interest. I recently got Thief 2 as part of an OEM bundle with my new sound card, so I said what the heck, I'll try it out. I got pretty bored with it after the 2nd level, which kind of worried me. The storyline (the limited bit I saw) was good, there were backgrounds to why you did 'X' on a mission. The kind of talking to yourself narration was good. The animation was horrible, the models were horrible. The skins were good. The engine seemed to be partially masked because of it's limited application. The AI was decent, I didn't think it was quite up to the Half Life soldiers. Anyway, it's something I've been kicking around in my head for a while, so I thought I'd see what everyone else had to say about it.
About the author
Mesut
Games have been around for thousands of years, from the Persians who invented Chess and BackGammon to today's Monopoly and 3d pc games. As kids we are taught to play and invent our own games. It seems to be fixated somehow in our genetics. There is no formulae to make a game fun to play e.g. a + b = c, but we have developed some general patterns, that seem to work, most of the time.
Rules:
nearly every game Ive played has rules and regulations which each player must follow, these set the boundaries for a fair game, "you cannot move that piece here" or "you cannot take that piece until you've moved 3 steps back..."
Solve:
create an ever-changing puzzle, different combinations using the same parameters as demonstrated by those old classics like Tetris and Chess. A game can be aesthetically very pleasing on the outside but have little content on the inside, which has been the demise of a video-game companies.
Opponent:
a game needs to be interactive with some form of opposition albeit a clock you race against, a human opponent you play against or a CPU controlled character you battle against. Some form of challenger has to be added creating an ever-changing landscape to puzzle the players and get them immersed in the environment to think about their actions and the ramifications of those actions. Online games are bringing the human-opponent factor back into digital games, an almost random thought humans exert compared to a formulated PC opponent.
Goal:
the overall game has to have a purpose a goal e.g. reaching the highest score or defeating the final evil boss. Without a goal the game is meaningless.
Stimulation:
Rewarding the player once the goal is accomplished can be very important as well. Points, lives or even a "Well Done!" message on the screen can change the player's attitude and make them feel proud in accomplishing the task. Adding the digital factor to games have increased the amount of senses we have stimulated. With a PC its possible to hear music, sounds whilst playing games, interact through weird and intriguingly shaped input devices, and even feel the impact of a virtual punch through a rumble pack.
Some guidelines for increasing the playability factor in games:
Rules: Governs the game.
Solve: Puzzles and patterns to work on.
Opponent(s): The force(s) working against you to stop you achieving the goal.
Goal: Purpose or meaning behind the game.
Stimulation: Use the PC power to stimulate your other senses.
-Mes