corvabird wrote: ↑Thu 08 Jul, 2021, 8:15 pm
Wysteria wrote: ↑Thu 08 Jul, 2021, 3:00 pm
Hi!
I've been trying some new computer games, Rimworld and House Flipper. One is too stressful and the other is not stressful enough. It makes me realize how game design matters. o_o
Oh so true though. And I remember House Flipper! My brothers were briefly really into it but it didn't seem to have staying power (not enough stress, I guess!)
I think this is why a lot of games seem really exciting to me to begin with and then I just lose interest really quickly. Not hitting the right notes of conflict versus comfort (for me, anyway).
Game design is really tricky like that, because a lot of people making video games tend to assume that the same things are fun to the same degree for everyone, when in fact
nobody has exactly the same preferences, tolerances and engagement points. That's why imo there's only two successful approaches to designing a game: knowing exactly what niche of gameplay you're aiming for and focusing on making it hit all the right points for that niche,
or, tying together a widely flexible range of playstyles and mechanics. Essentially, specialization versus flexibility.
Beyond that, when it comes to player engagement at least, balancing investment levels and risk perception are the key points and they're
really hard to get right, especially in multiplayer games. In singleplayer games, you can at least have difficulty modes - for example, in Minecraft, for people who get the most invested in high risk games, they can play on hardcore mode, with no respawn and maximum difficulty hostile creatures, while people who are invested by sense of progression but are put off by risk can play in Peaceful. And those who are invested by setting their own goals and freedom/flexibility and don't like risk at all can build things in Creative mode.
I don't know much about Rimworld, other than it's sort of like Dwarf Fortress, which makes me think they may have missed the roguelike design principle, Failure Is Fun. (Which is actually the titular principle behind Failbetter Games, who made Sunless Sea and Fallen London, which sometimes perplexes me because their entire philosophy appears to lend itself to losing being part of game design and progression and they
completely failed to implement that in Fallen London. You can only progress by succeeding! There are some side-stories you can get to by failing at certain optional things, like getting into the madness world, but generally speaking, it goes straight into grindy progression and as a result easily loses engagement very quickly. ...But this is a tangent.)
Relatedly to all of this, though, I've always found it somewhat exasperating how many game creators try to manage the player investment through the game's metagame. Scoreboards, progression, numberchasing, et cetera. If more designers focused more on the actual
gameplay being the fun and engaging part, they would have a lot more success.
