THE IDEAL GAME EXPERIENCE- RESEARCH STUDY
First a little background:
I am a student of communication design at the Faculty of Fine Arts in the University of Porto, Portugal. I am conducting a work regarding a marketing campaing for a new gaming console.
I am performing a small research to understand what kind of experiences attract game users.
I would sincerely appreaciate all contributions in answering the following question:
"How would your ideal game experience be like?Please describe it."
Thank you for your collaboration
With my best regards,
Jos
I am a student of communication design at the Faculty of Fine Arts in the University of Porto, Portugal. I am conducting a work regarding a marketing campaing for a new gaming console.
I am performing a small research to understand what kind of experiences attract game users.
I would sincerely appreaciate all contributions in answering the following question:
"How would your ideal game experience be like?Please describe it."
Thank you for your collaboration
With my best regards,
Jos
Replies
Story: The world and characters you play as are fleshed out. Bonuses for not relying on cliches.
Music: Catchy tunes that make you want to listen to them even when you're not playing the game.
Fun/Satisfaction: You can finish the game knowing that it's great and that it's just not a product to line someone's wallets.
You use your basic movement control knowledge to leave your current location, and stumble upon the world. Basic movement controls include simple but detailed interaction (like what's present in Amnesia: ADD or the Penumbra games), and you just...go. That's it, you just go. You walk around and see people, things, whatever world it is that the developers have built for you and you figure out what in the hell you're supposed to be doing. You walk into a shop in a village you find and you still have no idea if it's an RPG or a game where you run a shop or if you have a choice between either. You don't know if you hit the shopkeep if you'll get in trouble or if they'll die or if you even have any combat mechanics until you try it. Maybe at best you'll find like, simple bits of paper laying around that say things like "Magic exists", or "Objects can be thrown", or "get a job", and then you figure out what in the hell they're talking about. You go through the game discovering what the game is, what your role is in it, what the rules are, and if there is a story its the story of how you stumbled from wherever you spawned to wherever you are at that point you're at now. It would be a game of ultimate exploration. Similar to life but with so much more hilarity and the ability to just...try things, because what's the worst that can happen, you respawn in the middle of nowhere again? Maybe you'll wind up being able to run your own shop, maybe you'll wind up in a weird loop of helping some dog find food every day because that's the only routine in the game you know is safe and you want to see how long it will go. Maybe it turns out that there's in-depth combat mechanics and player tweaks that you just have to discover. How big is the world? What time period? Is it earth, alien? Can you die? Can you fight? Grow strong? Make money? What happens if you go East from your spawn point instead of West? What's out there? Who knows? Not me, if I knew it wouldn't be the fun I wanted.
(There is probably a reason I don't work towards game story/design.)
To answer your question much more simply, "Something I can remember fondly."
also, in my experience crazy multiplayer matches stick in my head way more than any story, because they make the players the characters. but hey, i'm a robot.
the visuals don't need to impress, they just need to get the job done. i am always in favor of reducing visuals in favor of more/more refined features. as long as the art direction itself is consistent and polished, the actual art fidelity isn't as important.
the most important thing to me is that the core actions involved in playing the game need to feel very satisfying. the player needs to feel 100% in control, every move you make needs to feel solid and give good feedback. good sounds, good animations, and good movement that all mesh together to make a good feel are huge parts of what makes a game enjoyable for me.
so basically quake
My ideal game experience would be X-COM: UFO Defense combined with Company of Heroes.
2. And then high Skill Ceiling and Multiplayer for self progression and replay-ability.
And for me Destruction and Physics stems from Garrysmod While high skill ceiling and multiplayer stems from Starcraft and Dota.
I agree there's too much hand holding today, "puzzle games" are more like complete this obvious task that I'm going to tell you how to do all the way through. With no plot integration as to why your are doing this task other than, "because this is a puzzle segment".
Alot of major games for me feel hollow with no depth past what you see is what you get. With few exceptions, most of which innovating from the indie realm.
I'd like to see more NPC depth and interaction, they are treated like a second thought these days, making the world feel empty and void of life because everyone is an extremely basic robot. Making you feel alone in a meaningless world.
I miss games that use days of the week, month to organise NPC's actions, schedules and interactions. Shenmue, Majora's mask. I'd want each one of these NPC's to an Ellie of their own.
I loathe games that claim the whole "good vs evil decisions that change the world" bullshit when they are black & white responces to extremely linear choices that have no consequence or effect on anything.
I like when NPC's interact with each other when its not for my immediate benefit. The kind that doesnt make me think "oh this is purely a quest intro for this area"