As designers there has to be some ways you've approached establishing the 'fun-factor' in your games. You've likely done something in one game that may very well transfer into the future games you've worked on. You've likely played a game that did something really fun and you noticed that formula being applied to other games.
What are some ways to improve the fun-factor in game design? What makes Zynga games on Facebook so popular? Do rewards lead to more fun? Does failure lead to more fun? Does making a player come back in 2 hours lead to more fun? Have you read any good quotes or thoughts that really sticks in your mind?
There could be a good list of things to think about when approaching fun.
Answer
One design goal that I've seen be pretty successful is to get players into a tight retry loop.
It's very disheartening as a gamer to be playing something, lose, and then have to go through a lot of rigamarole to get back to where they were. "Just one more time" isn't really what people think if it takes them a few minutes to get back to the fun stuff.
Some examples in various genres that try to get the player back into the game quickly:
- "rewind time" in games like Dirt 2/Grid, or Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
- near-instant retry in games like Canabalt
- quicksaves that are frequent and generous in pretty much most modern games
I realize this is sort of meta-level on the fun factor, but it does help keep people glued to the game for a longer period of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment