What makes a good game? Discuss.

[D3PART3D]

Good day, PCF!

I thought it would be interesting to discuss a little game design philosophy - we all have our favorite genres, but which principles govern how much you enjoy your experience?

I am playing through System Shock 2 for the first time and I'm simply blown away. The game does almost everything right. It has made me aware of what exactly it is that other games are missing.

Bioshock, it seems, was an attempt to bring System Shock 2 to a new generation of gamers. One of the problems with SS2 was that it was too difficult for the average gamer, and thus didn't sell too well. Bioshock was easier than it's successor, a supposed "improvement". I won't go into the details, as we are only discussing principles and not specifics, but let's start with difficulty.

DIFFICULTY: most games rely on providing you with a challenge you have to overcome in some interesting way. The amount of fun you have depends on how you go about solving your problem, if you do it well you get to pat yourself on the back. The more complex your problem is, the greater the satisfaction of overcoming it. However: difficulty needs to be rooted in something the player has control over, or else it is pointless. Also, there needs to be a point to the challenge, a motive.

MOTIVATION: Pain for the sake of pain... no thanks. A goal is required. The carrot on the string. Save the earth from and alien invasion? Reunite a piece of meat with his girlfriend? Those are long-term goals. Short term rewards are also essential. Perhaps reward smaller tasks with supplies, such as ammo and health? A new weapon? To avoid this sort of thing from becoming overly repetitave, we also need:

PROGRESSION: There needs to be some sense that you are moving forward. Completing tasks which advance you toward the main goal, levelling up, becoming more efficient at dealing with older types of enemies, that sort of thing.

STORY: not only gives you a context for your busyness, but essential to your emotional response to the game and the depth of its immersion.

There is quite a bit of detail I could go into, such as how the complexity of your challenges can be created through things like specific ammo types being more effective against certain enemies, making resources scarce so that you think about every little decision you make that depletes them and so on, but this is already tl;dr, right? Pretty basic stuff, but it matters. How often do game developers get this right What else belongs on the list?

[GreyWolf]

I like a game with a good story, and the good delivery of story.

Example of good story and good delivery: CoD Black Ops, Deus Ex ( I knew what was going on at every point of the game and I was interested in it)
Example of good story and bad delivery: Half Life 2 (had NO idea what was going on untill the very end)
Example of bad story and good delivery: Doom 3 (I knew what was going on, but to be honest the story line was boring)

[Sojourn]

tl;dr
I recall an ages old thread where this was asked and discussed into oblivion.

[wizardofid]

DIFFICULTY: most games rely on providing you with a challenge you have to overcome in some interesting way. The amount of fun you have depends on how you go about solving your problem, if you do it well you get to pat yourself on the back. The more complex your problem is, the greater the satisfaction of overcoming it. However: difficulty needs to be rooted in something the player has control over, or else it is pointless. Also, there needs to be a point to the challenge, a motive.

Well how it generally works is giving the player a simple problem by the use of a cut scene, or by story driven voice ques.The usually starts out simple and give the player the basic mechanics of future puzzles and steadily increases the difficulty.Essentially you don't want a 100 zombies spawns running at you with limited ammo.It gets boring after awhile, so a simple methods of having to move around to close a gate to stop the zombies hordes from attacking they break a new gate and such.It is better than for example having to kill all 100 zombies.
Generally speaking puzzles and enemy always has a purpose in story driven game.As the enemies get harder so does finding ammo for your most powerful weapons.The game gets harder but it also tells you to use less powerful weapons on smaller hordes of zombies and save the powerful ones when you need it.Health pickups critical too little and a simple task becomes too hard, too much and a hard task becomes too easy.Many games have over done health pickups, making it way to easy for the player, some games have achieved better results by adding or removing health or ammo or weapons by the difficulty selection before starting the game.Essentially the best difficulty is a gradual increase with still with some practical hints by using the actual game environment.

MOTIVATION: Pain for the sake of pain... no thanks. A goal is required. The carrot on the string. Save the earth from and alien invasion? Reunite a piece of meat with his girlfriend? Those are long-term goals. Short term rewards are also essential. Perhaps reward smaller tasks with supplies, such as ammo and health? A new weapon? To avoid this sort of thing from becoming overly repetitave, we also need:

Is this a must, do you want to know you kill ratio at the end of the level the more you kill the better your points are.I think your idea of game motivation is wrong.The idea of motivation by the developers is to give you a reason to complete a game.Since you never know what new weapons you usually get as you progress in a first person shooter game.How does the unknown motivate.RTS motivates new weapons because you know they are there by upgrading or getting more cash ect.Very few FPS actually make use of motivation to get that new gun by killing a thousand zombies.Motivation in this sense is not about rewards, but about kidnapping your girlfriend and having to rescue her, that indirectly motivates you to complete the game, an alien invasion doesn't motivate, the alien invasion that killed your parents and the story surrounding that does.

PROGRESSION: There needs to be some sense that you are moving forward. Completing tasks which advance you toward the main goal, levelling up, becoming more efficient at dealing with older types of enemies, that sort of thing.

Not entirely true there is no rule you must upgrade to ultimate awesomeness to make the game great, the player can stay his normal self without having the power of graveskull in his hands.If the story permits you can successfully remove all progress the player has achieve for the sake of the story by removing the weapons or armor or whatever the story wants and have to rebuild. Progression is not a must.Progression is a relative term it really means getting the player from point D to point C and onto D in a entertaining and yet smooth fashion without breaking game play with unnecessary actions

STORY: not only gives you a context for your busyness, but essential to your emotional response to the game and the depth of its immersion.

It is not essential if you have absolutely no story would it make the game worse.?


You have missed SOUND:
There is nothing worse than a bad sound track, missed cued speech, or bad quality sound that breaks game play moods.

Graphics :
This the the major sell point of any game now days it is not a luxury any more but still not a must to have super graphics.Detailed neat textures with simple shaders is more than enough to sell a game to a consumer

[DAE_JA_VOO]

Innovation and originality. That's where it's at, for me. If a game is doing something differently, I want it. It can even have a crap story line, and it'll still be amazing.

Perfect example: Portal

Portal was a puzzle FPS game with an incredibly innovative aspect (portals). The story line was mediocre at best, but the innovative nature of the game made it absolutely amazing. The witty comments that GLaDOS made was also welcome.


I'm totally over gaming at this point in my life. Not because I'm not interested in it anymore, but because all of the games that come out these days are just last year's games with better visuals. Black Ops was such a "meh" experience for me. It was pretty, it was fun, but it was the same freaking game I've played with the previous COD games. There wasn't any innovation, nothing new and special to set it apart. Heck, I spent more time playing Game Dev Story on my phone than I did Black Ops on my PC. Can you guys remember 7-10 years ago when just about every single game that came out had some kind of exciting feature that made you want it?

I also find that the line between over-linearity and completely open-endedness needs to be found for a game to be awesome. The linearity of Episode 1 and 2 made them games that I only played so that I could say I have, and even that wasn't motivation enough (I never finished Episode 2). However, the overwhelming openness in Far Cry 2 was also just too much. That line needs to be found for a story-based game to be awesome.

My 2c

[StarBound]

Reward system? You need to feel like your progressing even if it just a 1% difference. Look at WoW.

Call of Duty from modern warfare and up (multiplayer): cod4. you get experience and unlock weapons, weapon camo, weapon attachements, perks ect. And kill streaks keeps you gunning for higher kills.
mw2: Even more of the same, inferior only because it takes ages to actually get into a game which renders it useless.
black ops: lower on the list than cod4 but above mw2 because now you have to buy the stuff after earning the right to buy it. quicker game finding again.

A game I am currently playing on PS3 is Blazblue continuem shift. Its a fighting game but the massive amount of fresh lore behind its story mode keeps me entertained and hooked. The story mode is mostly 90% conversation and only 10% fighting so in that case story is playing a greater roll than the gameplay. When you switch to arcade mode your characters also has a story mode that is being followed but then it switches from 10% conversation to 90% fighting.

Then going on to games where their are no story involved is games on steam like Shatter (arkanoid clone) with a silly story about you going after some kind of dimentional criminals. The other is rush which is a puzzle game. Both games has little to no story yet it manages to pull off being games you come back to. Score chasing maybe?

[wizardofid]

Reward system? You need to feel like your progressing even if it just a 1% difference. Look at WoW.

Call of Duty from modern warfare and up (multiplayer): cod4. you get experience and unlock weapons, weapon camo, weapon attachements, perks ect. And kill streaks keeps you gunning for higher kills.
mw2: Even more of the same, inferior only because it takes ages to actually get into a game which renders it useless.
black ops: lower on the list than cod4 but above mw2 because now you have to buy the stuff after earning the right to buy it. quicker game finding again.

A game I am currently playing on PS3 is Blazblue continuem shift. Its a fighting game but the massive amount of fresh lore behind its story mode keeps me entertained and hooked. The story mode is mostly 90% conversation and only 10% fighting so in that case story is playing a greater roll than the gameplay. When you switch to arcade mode your characters also has a story mode that is being followed but then it switches from 10% conversation to 90% fighting.

Then going on to games where their are no story involved is games on steam like Shatter (arkanoid clone) with a silly story about you going after some kind of dimentional criminals. The other is rush which is a puzzle game. Both games has little to no story yet it manages to pull off being games you come back to. Score chasing maybe?

You want to tell me that it is essential for a game to progress in order to make it great.?

[StarBound]

It should feel like your progressing, like your accomplishing something.

I had Final Fantasy 13. The game was a 1 button game. I felt like I made absolutely no progress even though I did. The pacing of the game felt slow.

[U_571]

It should have a WWII setting
Needs amazing graphics and effects
Excellent voice acting
Crisp sound effects
Stealth and espionage
Drivable vehicles and aircraft
Non-linear missions

or... is there a WWII mod for a recently released game?

[Anakha56]

It should have a WWII setting


or... is there a WWII mod for a recently released game?

@ U_571 please for the love of all that is holy with his noodly grace NO!!!! I am sick to friggin death of playing WW2 shootups, a good game has to be original not use the same theme over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Unless of course we play as the Nazi's as a official true to life reconstruction that could be fun...

@ Every other post tl;dr...

Will post and read when I get home .

[hamin_aus]

There are 3 questions I ask about a game when deciding whether it is epic or not:

1. Are there Terrans?
2. Are there Protoss?
3. Are there Zerg?

[ryanrich]

There are 3 questions I ask about a game when deciding whether it is epic or not:

1. Are there Terrans?
2. Are there Protoss?
3. Are there Zerg?

StarCraft fanatic you.

[wizardofid]

@ U_571 please for the love of all that is holy with his noodly grace NO!!!! I am sick to friggin death of playing WW2 shootups, a good game has to be original not use the same theme over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Unless of course we play as the Nazi's as a official true to life reconstruction that could be fun...

Unless of course they are Nazi zombies being controlled by Zergs and use Prottos technology and fight against the Terrans.

[Jonboy]

It should have a WWII setting

Wolfenstein got it right, WWII with a twist. But as for a FPS, Borderlands was one of the most addictive I've ever played. Somehow they made repetition fun. Far Cry 2 made repetition make me want to throttle myself with my keyboard cable ('I could swear I just killed everybody at that outpost').

[Anakha56]

Eish SC2 with WW2 mixed in. Terran = U.S.A. Protoss = France and Zerg = Germany?

[StarBound]

What we need is a Jurassic Park with zombie dinosaurs ...being mounted by nazi's... zombie nazi's

[Jonboy]

Eish SC2 with WW2 mixed in. Terran = U.S.A. Protoss = France and Zerg = Germany?

Company of Heroes?

[wizardofid]

Eish SC2 with WW2 mixed in. Terran = U.S.A. Protoss = France and Zerg = Germany?

See you can still do WWII, it really come down to being original....Game developers keep to their recipe for death and destruction and don't often stray from it.

I would love to do a Anglo Boer war game, should really be some thing different, it may have a small market, but that would original, and fun theme.

[Anakha56]

I would love to do a Anglo Boer war game, should really be some thing different, it may have a small market, but that would original, and fun theme.

Now we are talking. A different war that has different themes. Using your Anglo Boer war idea you have 3 factions each with a different set of pro's and con's and would make the game challenging. I am just sick of WW2 & Vietnam clones the guns are the same the story is the same and the scenery is the same. A different war in a different country would be refreshing...

[wizardofid]

Using your Anglo Boer war idea you have 3 factions each with a different set of pro's and con's and would make the game challenging.

So will you do the research.... I will make the game.

[KALSTER]

Using your Anglo Boer war idea you have 3 factions each with a different set of pro's and con's and would make the game challenging.

So will you do the research.... I will make the game.

He can just rent "Grensoorlog" from his local DVD store.

Edit: er... for a game about SA vs SWAPO or APLA...

[wizardofid]

He can just rent "Grensoorlog" from his local DVD store.

Sigh, wrong war...

[U_571]

Using your Anglo Boer war idea you have 3 factions each with a different set of pro's and con's

Let me check the history books because if I remember correctly one faction were consistently better than the other two... how will that be incorporated into the game? To be historically accurate one of the factions will have to keep standing in their formation while being shot at

Don't flame me now..

[wizardofid]

He can just rent "Grensoorlog" from his local DVD store.

Sigh, wrong war...

edit*
He can watch arende

[wizardofid]

Using your Anglo Boer war idea you have 3 factions each with a different set of pro's and con's

Let me check the history books because if I remember correctly one faction were consistently better than the other two... how will that be incorporated into the game? To be historically accurate one of the factions will have to keep standing in their formation while being shot at

Don't flame me now..

Nope their were only 2 the natives were excluded from both wars as far as I know.The Brits did however make use of the natives to spy on the boers.

I think this would make a great multiplayer game for SA, UK market...Not so much a FPS but better suited to a RTS...you can have little bearded commando men spawn from tents....