Development: When does the Game become "Fun"?

oXYnary

Its a simple yet very complex question.

From your personal experience, when is the point during development where the game being created goes from a series of assets and linked game mechanics to being "fun" to play?

Now, to make it even harder....

Is there any ratio if the game being created is fun early on (blocked in assets and unfinished core game mechanics), versus late in development (finalized artistic implementation or game mechanic), corresponds to commercial success?

Muzzoid

Working in mobile games, if the game isn't fun when it is a prototype, it won't ever be fun. In my experience anyway.

Always for uni students i stress the most important thing is getting the gameloop finished, and then making it fun, it doesn't matter if the first art assets are bad.

Snader

Right in the first week mockup. If the core mechanics don't work, it'll never be fun.



No. Commercial success is more dependent on marketing and luck.

Muzzoid

"Commercial success is more dependent on marketing and luck."

Partly dude, that luck element can be made less important from understanding the market.
We had a pretty damn good run making hits when i was at half brick. Not sure how much that was luck Fruitninja>Monsterdash>JetpackJoyride.

The biggest decider by far was gameplay and art style.

ZacD

It also depends on the type of game and what is suppose to be rewarding in the game.

oXYnary

Muzz wrote: »

Working in mobile games, if the game isn't fun when it is a prototype, it won't ever be fun. In my experience anyway.

Always for uni students i stress the most important thing is getting the gameloop finished, and then making it fun, it doesn't matter if the first art assets are bad.

Auh, but when is a prototype no longer a prototype?

Muzzoid

Usually a prototype is using non production level code... so when they throw that out and start coding it properly?

oXYnary

Muzz wrote: »

Usually a prototype is using non production level code... so when they throw that out and start coding it properly?

Once the game reaches the fun level at that prototype stage. That particular point when it all came together enough to be "fun". When is it (inside the prototype stage)? When does the magic most often happen for you?

Muzzoid

Well i guess it all depends on the scope of the game, If we are talking single screen action games like tiny wings, then you pretty much get a good idea when you get the mechanic in and you spend more time messing around with the mechanic than you do programming it. Id say that's a pretty good indicator.

But lets say we take it up to something like lets say an rts, where prototyping only gets you so far. In that case you should be prototyping on the small scale, making certain elements fun, as well as the macro scale.

Do you know much about feedback loops?

Also this blog is a great read.

http://www.lostgarden.com/

mikhga

In my experience it completely depends on what kind of game you are making. Some more gameplay focused games I have worked on became fun to play while still prototyping, while other games with less focus on gameplay and more on art and atmosphere became fun right around the vertical slice.

[HP]

This is an extremely relative question, it depends from team to team, project to project, company to company.

With that being said, for most cases, typically a game starts being fun when everything comes together as a whole, which is typically a few months before shipping believe it or not. Alpha builds are usually fun to play as well.
Before that... it can be almost a chore having to play your own game, since you're staring at it every day. But again... very relative!

chrisradsby

In my experience from working with AAA-games of different genres. The fun comes and goes really. Core game-mechanics need to be fun from the start. My biggest pet-peeve with First-Person Shooters is that it needs to be fun to shoot people. Lots of FPS-games aren't satisfying enough with just the shooting.

Best example of this is Max Payne 3. Just shooting people is a lot of fun, that is the core-mechanic and it's what you do 90% of the game. It's also evolving the with your skill of the game. At the start of Max Payne 3 you might have just shot people in the face by randomly running around and jumping but later on maybe you make use of the physics of the game and tackle the heavy armored guy with a jumpdive while you take out the easier guys and then when the heavy is on the floor you execute him by planting a bullet in his skull. That's just adding to the already FUN core-mechanic.

The real problem is when you blend genres, where you need to balance several core-mechanics to suit the both main genres. Like RPG/Shooting like Borderlands. Where the feedback you get from the enemies isn't always satisfying. You just see numbers or a health-bar drop.

If you have average shooting gameplay but later on in the game you get something that makes it more fun, you'll still have the issue where the first part of the game isn't as fun as the second part etc.

So for me, the sweet spot of FUN in game development is when you nail the core-mechanics and it makes the game super fun to play. That's why I feel like it's always very important to ask the whole team if they feel that the game is fun enough to play with just the core-mechanics in.

McGreed

That's actually something I was thinking about the other day. I really want to make and create a game with all the things I like in games. But suddenly occurred to me that one of the big aspects of my joy with the games, is to explorer the unknown, and when you create a game, this is one of the things that's kinda hard to avoid losing. You build it, you know it, unless of course you have lot of random generated stuff.
However, whenever you see your stuff coming to life in a game, your concept not just being a static image in your head, that's awesome.

TrevorJ

I often thought on this a lot before, not so much anymore. Mostly because the word or idea of "fun" doesn't apply to a lot of today's experiences. For example I've just recently got to play through some of the Walking Dead by TellTale. Those games definitely aren't pure "fun" but they are for sure entertaining. Now I think it would be super hard for someone who has been working on that game for 2-3 years to hear the same scripts over and over from testing there scripting/art/animations and not be anything but numbed to the feelings that you may have felt when you first heard the script or saw that initial animation for the first time. This is exactly why play-testing is so damn important.


I think a more relevant question although maybe more vague is "Is it giving the type of experience we want." Something like Journey where there is totally a layer of simple "fun", in just the way you can move around/jump/surf etc, but there is also a whole other layer with the cooperation of this unnamed stranger, that i think is much more important. They had a tonne of trouble trying to get people to work together at That Game Company. Some things like this can take a super long time to get right, and when you do finally get them right, you wont be playing it, you'll be watching someone else play it. The most important thing I think, is that everyone on the team is on the same page as to what you're all trying to make. If you took everyone on the team and interviewed them in a room separately the accounts of what kind of game the're making should be similar. If there not, then you have some serious creative direction/communication problems.


Like ChrisRadsby said though, the fun definitely comes and goes, someone or some team implements something new and you use it for the first time and your like "hey! that's super fun!" but after the 1000 time it's no longer fun. When your super close to a game all you can see is the warts, it's really hard to step back and see the good anymore, "everything sucks and it all needs to be better!"

that's prob the longest post iv ever made, rant over.

CrazyMatt

Muzz wrote: »

If the game isn't fun when it is a prototype, it won't ever be fun.

That is probably going to be one of the greatest quotes in the history of game development!
Good on you for writing that Muzz, because at the end of the day. Fun is really the question we should all be holding to the games we create as developers. (artists included)

skylebones

So I've been working on a game in my spare time for a long time now, and I've had some serious up and downs. Multiple times I have wanted to move the whole project straight into the recycle bin and wipe it from my mind. But finally yesterday it hit a point where everything started coming together and I had "fun" playing it. Production went down, and I just played.


And it felt amazing.

slipsius

What I love about this thread is that STORY hasnt been mentioned AT ALL. But I agree with the it has to be fun in prototype. At at the very least, you need to see potential. Like ya, this could be good, but certain things need to be fixed and changed. So i guess that point of crossing the fun line is when the game mechanics are pretty solid and well designed.

PixelMasher

Most games ive worked on have potential like slipsius mentioned but don't become truly fun until a month or 2 before ship when its all coming together and polished. most of the time after an aggressive cutting phase where people take out all the generic/water down shit and focus on 2-3 core gameplay elements and really focus on making those as tight as possible. sometimes I will work on a game for a year or so and think its going to bomb or be total dog shit right until the end where it actually becomes playable and fun.

skylebones

Thats a great point Slipsius. I've always been big on story in games, but lately I'm really starting to realize that the games I consider to be the most 'Fun' have little to no story at all. And games with an emphasis on great stories may be memorable, but not necessarily fun. The Walking Dead was a very memorable game, but doesn't top my list of fun.

Torch

Think I'm gonna annoy a few die hard fans here, but lately I've been getting sick of the generic FPS - there's always one coming out and more often than not they're set in the World War era (don't get me wrong, I don't mind a good WW shooter but there's only so many times you can storm the Reichstag until it gets a bit samey XO )

I don't get all these graphic whores, what's the point of having an amazing looking game if the story is utterly gash? Play for 5 mins - join the bargain bin pile.

Been getting a lot more into stylised games and mobile stuff, even thinking about trading in me Xbox for a Wii U. Try out Bitrip Runner 2, that game is a feckin audio and design masterpiece!

Kevin Albers

oXYnary wrote: »

Is there any ratio if the game being created is fun early on (blocked in assets and unfinished core game mechanics), versus late in development (finalized artistic implementation or game mechanic), corresponds to commercial success?

In my experience...yes.

I'm pretty sure if you could poll everyone who worked on any game, there would be some correlation between 'finding the fun' early on in the project and commercial success, but there would also be plenty of exceptions to this rule.

One thing I find interesting is 'games' getting away from always being about fun. As others have mentioned, some games can be interesting although they aren't exceptionally fun. I think that as games strive for more experiences other than 'pure fun', it will be harder for those games to determine if they will be successful early on in the project. If your goal is to try and make people think about a political issue, for example, you may not know if you are going to succeed at that goal early on, while prototyping game mechanics with simple proxy assets.

Chasing fun is more straightforward than a lot of goals, and if Fun is the goal of the game, then having core mechanics that many people find fun, while early on in pre-production, is a very good indicator that the game has potential.