Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 7723313" data-attributes="member: 6801286">Defining what &quot;fun&quot; is, is one of the hardest questions in Game Design. And no Game Designer should ever be afraid to answer the question &quot;What is fun about this game?&quot;, they should be excited to answer it.I once talked to a guy who wanted to be a game designer, who had a computer game that he wanted to make, and asked him &quot;But what is fun about it?&quot;, and he got really angry about it. I think because he didn't really have an answer, and it frustrated him. I attend Spiel in Germany every year. You can see a lot of unpublished games at this convention, try them out, and have a chat with the designer. Some of the biggest mistakes that I often see in game design is:-The game lacks focus on a central theme-The game is trying to incorporate too many computer game ideas into a board- or card-game format-The game features too many bits and pieces-The game has too complex rules and/or too many exceptions to rules-The game has too much maintenance/upkeep in between rounds (in other words, too many things you need to remember to do each round)-The game has a too complex action economy (too many actions on your turn)-The game's mechanics are not a cohesive whole-The game mostly just has cool artwork-The game is an inferior clone of an already existing popular game-The game has too much number crunching, or the numbers are substituted by a ton of tokens-The game does not have a clear definition of what is supposed to make it fun</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Imaculata, post: 7723313, member: 6801286"] Defining what "fun" is, is one of the hardest questions in Game Design. And no Game Designer should ever be afraid to answer the question [I]"What is fun about this game?"[/I], they should be excited to answer it. I once talked to a guy who wanted to be a game designer, who had a computer game that he wanted to make, and asked him [I]"But what is fun about it?"[/I], and he got really angry about it. I think because he didn't really have an answer, and it frustrated him. I attend Spiel in Germany every year. You can see a lot of unpublished games at this convention, try them out, and have a chat with the designer. Some of the biggest mistakes that I often see in game design is: -The game lacks focus on a central theme -The game is trying to incorporate too many computer game ideas into a board- or card-game format -The game features too many bits and pieces -The game has too complex rules and/or too many exceptions to rules -The game has too much maintenance/upkeep in between rounds (in other words, too many things you need to remember to do each round) -The game has a too complex action economy (too many actions on your turn) -The game's mechanics are not a cohesive whole -The game mostly just has cool artwork -The game is an inferior clone of an already existing popular game -The game has too much number crunching, or the numbers are substituted by a ton of tokens -The game does not have a clear definition of what is supposed to make it fun [/QUOTE]

Verification