What Makes a Game Solid and Fun ..

Captain Hero

The Spoiler Soldier
We all know what makes that game perfect or almost perfect in terms of Story telling , the way the story presented , the gameplay and many more like characters, the backstory and the world ..
But IMO I see alot more than that and unfortunately some or many Devs don't give a damn about it , which is
[ The Details ]

I'm a guy who loves tiny details and tbh no it's not tiny in that gameplay some of them makes the world alive and in that moment you feel real and start to think before making that step into the action, I have played games which has very big world but Fuck it's a dead world to me with the absence of details..

for example when you have a partner ( NPC ) sneaking with you and at that moment when a guard saw your partner killing another guard and you thought gameover BUT no .. don't worry Devs don't give a shit about that AI you can continue your mission but it's not real anymore or let me say it in another way ... it's not fun

Focusing in how big the world is it's wrong dear developer , focusing in how many side mission you have without paying attention to the quality and details ! It's wrong

With the next gen coming soon we don't want to see lightning effects everywhere just to show us the great of TR technology.. we dont want to see big ass worlds with nothing but see and mountains!! Games not for show up your art only .. but show some really great story with a great gameplay next to paying attention to details..

A very good example is :


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A Plague Tale: Innocence .. what a great game and it's not open world Ubisoft! , wonderful gameplay I remember when that guard was coming to kill me with his axe and there was another guard with a bow is targeting me too I thought I'm gonna die but suddenly an arrow killed the one with the axe! .. it's not glitch but small details when that guard shooting arrows on me he accidentally killed his friend.. also when you send your friend to kill a guard you can't send him like that ! .. if he kill one and the others saw him then you are in trouble .. that's why I love this game it makes you the one who control the situation through Details ..

It's not competition.. who has the biggest world! Or who has the best graphics!


I want to know your opinion dear reader..



Big love
 
Mmmh...i can add this..
Enemies in fallout run out of ammos and they pass in melee weapons...and they don't have fear to use mini nuke to kill you in seconds...and use stimpacks too (you can hear the sound)
 
For me, the foundation of fun is world reactivity/interactivity and character movement. If I'm allowed to approach goals with any level of creativity, and the way the character traverses the environment feels smooth and not too rigidly controlled, then I'm hooked.

Even if a game has only one if these elements and other negatives like a garbage story, I'm at least in for a playthrough. Take Mirror's Edge, for example: awful story, little creativity in terms of goals (though finding the optimal path is fun), but the traversal felt sublime at the time.

I 100% agree though that complex game systems that allow for more organic gameplay moments (like tricking the guard into shooting his friend, as you said) are great, and the size of the sandbox adds nothing if the gameplay inside is all cookie-cutter and controls are contextual (looking at you Assassin's Creed).
 
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Plague tale was good but too easy even for a guy who hates puzzles.

For me great meaty combat and sense of progression are the most important things.
Then graphics and story\pg and interesting enemies to fight and some challenge.
 
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For me the formula isn't fixed, and that's the great thing about art/creativity. But when it clicks and you see it/you feel it, you know it.

Trying to give a definitive answer to your question is the root of homogenization in gaming and suffocates creativity. (I'm not saying it's bad to examine the question - just that searching for a singular answer is fruitless.)

Greatness can be expressed in so many ways.
 
Responsive controls / low input lag are the foundation. Then you need creative loops and hooks to lock the player into a rhythm to encourage them to master the mechanics. Reward systems (score, randomized loot, unlockable characters, cutscenes, etc) should always redirect the player back into the central loop and should not be an end, merely a means to an end. Minimum downtime between action scenes is a must.

I also think music plays an important role in the perceived "fun", maybe as important as the graphics. Imagine running into a Covenant base on Legendary difficulty, itchy trigger finger at the ready, but instead of this playing in the background you're listening to this:

 
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There is a fine line... a grey area if you will... for what makes games fun. Like others have said, some of the best games have a good balance of responsive and satisfying gameplay, mixed in with goals or a story to keep you pushing forward.

In my opinion there are really only two types of game styles:

- Experience (Last of Us, Death Stranding) Experience games are more concerned with delivering satisfying narratives, rather than being actual "Fun" to play. Players are driven to play these games for their stories rather than the gameplay.
- Play (Mario games, Smash Bros, Beat Saber, DUSK) Play games are more concerned with delivering fun, responsive gameplay, as opposed to captivating the audience with a compelling narrative. These are games that people play just for the sake of playing because they provide fun and enjoyment.

Then you have games that mix those two components to varying degrees of success. Games that provide both a memorable Experience and Fun gameplay (Halo 3, Skyrim, Zelda BOTW).
 
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There is a fine line... a grey area if you will... for what makes games fun. Like others have said, some of the best games have a good balance of responsive and satisfying gameplay, mixed in with goals or a story to keep you pushing forward.

In my opinion there are really only two types of game styles:

- Experience (Last of Us, Death Stranding) Experience games are more concerned with delivering satisfying narratives, rather than being actual "Fun" to play. Players are driven to play these games for their stories rather than the gameplay.
- Play (Mario games, Smash Bros, Beat Saber, DUSK) Play games are more concerned with delivering fun, responsive gameplay, as opposed to captivating the audience with a compelling narrative. These are games that people play just for the sake of playing because they provide fun and enjoyment.

Then you have games that mix those two components to varying degrees of success. Games that provide both a memorable Experience and Fun gameplay (Halo 3, Skyrim, Zelda BOTW).
I had far more fun with tlou gameplay at high level of difficulty than everything on zelda botw, it's very subjective :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 
I think there are different pedigrees of fun too. Some people like to build/grind stuff in games -- these can be boring activities to do, but it's also a good way to unwind. Not every game needs to be an in-your-face flume of stimulating excitement, just respectful of your investment as a player. This does not excuse lazy game design, tho!
 
for example when you have a partner ( NPC ) sneaking with you and at that moment when a guard saw your partner killing another guard and you thought gameover BUT no .. don't worry Devs don't give a shit about that AI you can continue your mission but it's not real anymore or let me say it in another way ... it's not fun
I feel like you're referring to TLOU.

Anyway, it's not that developers don't give a shit. It's a lot easier for them to make sentient AI aimbots that know where you are all the time but they don't do that because it wouldn't be fun for most players. The 'stupid' AI that people like to make fun of tends to take more effort.

A lot of times the devs have to find the balance between realism and fun and oftentimes this involves some abstraction or even suspension of belief on the player's part.
 
For me is the combat or the exploration and the pace has to be good.

It needs at least one of those two plus a good pace for me to have fun with it. The reasons why I love Souls games: Amazing worlds, not repetition and excellent combat.

For comparison sake: Nioh, Death Stranding and Sekiro.

Nioh has low focus on exploration, however it has an amazing combat system. That's enough for me to love it.

Death Stranding on the other hand, has little focus on combat, but the world is fun to explore, so I love it.

And finally Sekiro, it has a fine combat system and a beautiful semi open world to explore. I also love it. Another similar game to me is the latest God of War.


Each one of these games fulfill things I enjoy it on video games. In other words to me they are fun.

The pace plays a major part on it, take Ubisoft games llike Assassin's Creed Odyssey: It starts good, but then it gets so padded with so much boring and repetitive content that sucks all the fun I could have with the game.
 
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I had far more fun with tlou gameplay at high level of difficulty than everything on zelda botw, it's very subjective :lollipop_grinning_sweat:

True... fun is definitely subjective. While I don't consider most horror games to be fun I do still find enjoyment in them through their experiences.

And there are many parts of the Last of Us that can be fun and enjoyable, but in a different kind of way.

Having only a few rounds of ammo and lining up perfect headshots is satisfying, but can be stressful knowing that a missed shot could spell certain doom in later gunfights. That is what The Last of Us is all about though. Surviving through attrition and skill.
 
True... fun is definitely subjective. While I don't consider most horror games to be fun I do still find enjoyment in them through their experiences.

And there are many parts of the Last of Us that can be fun and enjoyable, but in a different kind of way.

Having only a few rounds of ammo and lining up perfect headshots is satisfying, but can be stressful knowing that a missed shot could spell certain doom in later gunfights. That is what The Last of Us is all about though. Surviving through attrition and skill.
Not for me, take combat for example.

Tlou is an excellent realistic slow brutal tps, with meaty gunplay, and probably the best melee animation on the market.

Botw combat? An ultra basic thing with brain dead enemy most of the time, zero combo, and almost no challenge after a couple of hours.

Just by their combat, tlou for me was faaaar more fun to PLAY compared to botw.

Obviously not everyone like tlou combat or put so much weight on combat alone (for example i don't give a damn about naughty dog stories and pg)

For me tlou was a videogame fun to play first and foremost, not some oniric experience like someone think.
 
What makes a game fun is different for each person. There are many people who do not feel to invest in a game if it doesn't have character development, and there are people who yawned within 5 minutes of the Witcher 3 and never gave it another try.

What keeps you playing and hesitant to put down the controller? What makes you want to return to the game asap? That's what makes each game good and fun.
 
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