What makes a game fun?

[zmaster18]

I've been thinking a lot about the philosophy behind gaming lately...and I have trouble defining what makes a game fun/good.

Here's what I have:

a fun game:

-has good controls
-interesting setting/characters
-good music (however, does not relate to gameplay)
-game is based on skill, not luck or unfair bullshit
-gives the player freedom or incentive to use strategic decisions

I know there's more to the list, I just can't think of anymore. Please let me know how you define a 'fun' game, I'm really interested in your opinions!

[P]

I've also been thinking about this and it's really hard to define it. You forgot this one though:

-interesting graphics (character design etc)

Graphics and music are sometimes considered superficial elements, and it's sometimes said that in gaming only gameplay counts. I don't agree with that at all. Games are art and the whole experience counts. All these factors are important for the overall experience.

I would change the "game is based on skill, not luck or unfair bullshit" to something like "a good balance of luck and skill" because how much luck a good game can have depends on the player making the judge. Board game fans are often divided between people who prefer games with no or very little luck (often called eurogames) and those who prefer more traditional highly luck based games. A video game should normally probably not have too much luck for most people to enjoy it though.

[FamicomRetroGamer]

+ Gameplay mechanics
+ Characters
+ Music
+ Graphics
+ Cool stages
+ Numerous worlds

Well, just think of Mario 3D World and Sonic Lost World. I've read that a lot of people hate SLW because they just never really bothered to learn how the game controls, and the game itself doesn't explain it very well.

When wallrunning and you start to go down you need to press the dash button so you go right up, you could say that it's somewhat a bit too much to expect from the player but honestly this is pretty cool for me. Unfortunately the game didn't have a lot of stages to play.

I wish Sega would make Sonic Lost World 2 but considering how the reception of SLW has been we might never see the light of day for SLW2.

[smileyman8b]

i think any good game needs a good balance of challenging but rewarding gameplay
but its hard to say a defining feature for anything else because after that the features dont necessarily define if the game is fun or not it just starts to confine it in its own little genre of gaming and to different people the different challenges that come from the different genre's are funner so thats why we have strategy, adventure, platformer etc fans and the people who like specifically strategy for example find that challenge more rewarding to them and therefore it is funner
also as far as games based on luck go those people i would assume find the challenge of trying to predict the unpredictable fun and addicting
i like almost any genre of gaming (besides dynasty warrior like games and games based on luck) but i find the good ones all have those two features in them challenging but rewarding
this is just my take on it but im sure the main idea of it has been said many times

[senseiman]

This is an interesting topic, and I think I generally agree with the list so far.  One difficulty that strikes me though is the fact that what makes a game fun may differ across genres.  

Having a good storyline, for example, is probably very important to make an RPG fun but is totally irrelevant to games in other genres (sports, puzzle games, etc).  There are probably a lot of other genre-specific standards, so I imagine in compiling a list of what makes a game fun at some point you'll have to make such distinctions.

[smileyman8b]

yeah i completely agree with the fact that it varies across the genres but one thing i should say is that i think a game should never feel like a job that youre obligated to play!  i hate that feeling for example when i tried out world of warcraft not a bad game but i felt like i had to constantly be playing it to get my moneys worth and it just took the fun out of it

[P]

Yeah MMOs are often very grind-heavy and after a while it feels like you are working without payment instead of playing for fun (and if it's pay-to-play, then you are actually paying to work!). We should add "Good balance of challenging but rewarding gameplay" like you said and that would mean that a game is not too easy/hard, long/short or grind-heavy, and reward the player for his heavy work.

This is an interesting topic, and I think I generally agree with the list so far.  One difficulty that strikes me though is the fact that what makes a game fun may differ across genres.  

Having a good storyline, for example, is probably very important to make an RPG fun but is totally irrelevant to games in other genres (sports, puzzle games, etc).  There are probably a lot of other genre-specific standards, so I imagine in compiling a list of what makes a game fun at some point you'll have to make such distinctions.

I think things like good story is part of "interesting setting/characters" so you should be able to apply it to any genre, whether it's a platform game, RPG, Puzzle game or even an abstract game like most card games.

"Numerous worlds" is of course only for games that is divided in worlds/levels. "Cool stages" could be considered to be a part of "Interesting setting/characters" so it should be genre-global enough. "Good controls" should also apply to any video game, even a 100% menu driven game needs to have smooth interactivity with the menus or it'll drive you crazy after a while. All the others should also apply to pretty much any genre.

[smileyman8b]

thats a good point putting interesting stages with interesting setting/character, i agree that it applies to every genre too and yeah i hate games that have horrible controls cause i always feel like maybe its just me and i am starting to suck  but then maybe its not maybe it is just the game and then it goes in a vicious cycle of is it the game or me 
also (something i think we all know) a game is automatically awesome if theres the triforce in it!      o-k==>
(thats link kicking an octoroks butt! ) and i know what some of you are thinking but leave the CDI out of this!  it doesnt count!..... curse you Philips!!!!

[P]

Yeah, but thinking about it some more I realize that setting/character is also heavily affected by graphics and sound among other things. Especially an RPG often gets its atmosphere from beautiful music. Controls, mechanics and gameplay goes hand in hand and could be considered one factor, as does balanced luck and challenge.

So we have:

Graphics
How well-made the overall visual presentation is done. Art-style of characters, environment and other things, and how it affects the game. Has nothing to do with how technically powerful graphics is used, but how tasteful it is.

Sound
Music and sound effects and how they are done and affect the game.

Gameplay
Is the game fun to interact with? Non-frustrating controls, good mechanics and smoothly navigable menus if applicable.

Challenge
Good balance of difficulty, game length and re-playability. Not too much or little grinding, and rewarding gameplay. Good balance of luck and skill that's appropriate for the genre.

Setting
The overall impression one gets from the levels/environment, characters, story, atmosphere etc as it applies for the genre.


I realized that this is pretty much what game magazine reviewers used to have when they put grades on games, except for setting. But setting is arguably at least partly a result from the other categories.

[smileyman8b]

Graphics
How well-made the overall visual presentation is done. Art-style of characters, environment and other things, and how it affects the game. Has nothing to do with how technically powerful graphics is used, but how tasteful it is.

Sound
Music and sound effects and how they are done and affect the game.

Gameplay
Is the game fun to interact with? Non-frustrating controls, good mechanics and smoothly navigable menus if applicable.

Challenge
Good balance of difficulty, game length and re-playability. Not too much or little grinding, and rewarding gameplay. Good balance of luck and skill that's appropriate for the genre.

Setting
The overall impression one gets from the levels/environment, characters, story, atmosphere etc as it applies for the genre.

the setting i think should definitely stay separate because the closest thing it could go into is graphics and it doesnt really fit there,
also we could possibly make a thread for game reviews where if you just beat a game you could post your review using the 5 things stated above which would be polled up with other peoples reviews for the end score of that game we could also list off if its english friendly or not and other helpful notes i think it would be very helpful and a cool feature and this is just an idea  sorry if theres already something like this but i havent noticed anything