What makes games fun?

What makes games fun?

I'm sure you've asked yourself this question multiple times. If you are getting into game design, then you should definitely be focusing a lot of time to the study of what makes games fun.

Interestingly enough, we actually play the specific games that we do based on our specific psychological needs.

According to Self-Determination Theory, we as human beings have three psychological needs: competency, autonomy, and relatedness.

These three needs are what drive us to make the choices that we do in our everyday lives, as well as in our long term goals and career paths.

Each of these three needs are broad, with many traits falling beneath their umbrella, but all of the traits are close enough that we can easily associate them with their specific psychological need.

The first need is competency. This psychological need is where we find the desire to master something, or to feel as though we are getting better at a specific task.

As it relates to gaming, this is where we find a lot of RPG elements like leveling, quests, unlocking items, upgrading items, etc.

However, this is also where we find our desires for difficult platformers, such as Mario and Super Meat Boy.

The need for competency can be described as both user progression (mastering the timing in order to complete a particularly difficult level), as well as character progression (applying stat points to increase a character's overall skills and abilities).

If you find yourself drawn more towards games that focus heavily on these elements, then you probably have a high competency need or desire.

The second psychological need is autonomy, which can be described as the need for freedom and meaningful choice.

This can be achieved in games like Minecraft, by offering the player endless possibilities with little to no path structure.

This can also be achieved through games that offer dialogue choices that imply to the player a meaningful choice is being made.

These choices don't actually have to be meaningful, or lead to a different outcome, but they have to make the player feel as though they do.

If you find yourself preferring vast, open world games, where you have total control over how you want to play the game, then you probably have a high autonomy need or desire.

However, if you find yourself getting bored or lost in games like Minecraft or GTA V Online, then you probably have a low autonomy need.

An example of a zero autonomy game would be the linear story structures of first person shooters like Call of Duty.

The final need is relatedness, or the need for social interactions.

This could simply be the ability to play online with friends in games like Borderlands, as well as the need to dominate other players in competitive games like Overwatch.

The important thing to remember when designing your own game is that you are not going to be able to appeal to everyone.

In keeping this in mind, you should try to focus heavily on two of the three psychological needs in a 50 - 40 - 10 ratio.

This will allow you to carve out the best niche audience for you game, where your players will be completely entranced and excited to play.

Trying to appeal to all three will result in a mediocre game that everyone thinks is just ok, with no one being all that excited about it.

Importance of Playing Games

If you want to make great games then you have to play games all the time!

Sounds easy and like a dream come true right?

However, this doesn't mean only playing good games or AAA titles. Instead, you should be trying to always expand your experience and knowledge base of the vast genres of games out there.

If you only play FPS or RTS games, then you are limiting what types of mechanics and level design concepts you can draw from when designing your own games.

As a designer, you should think of your knowledge and skills as your toolbox. Every time you play a new game, you are looking for new tools that you can add to your toolbox.

iOS Touch Controls Lagging

If you are making a game for both Android and iOS, then chances are that you've noticed a difference in usability.

This can be even more drastic in the Android market, as the number of devices and specs can range wildly from very good to paper weighty.

However, in terms of iOS devices, there is a known problem with touch controls in a Unity3D game.

I discovered this problem while working on Jumpy Blocks, a free mobile game that is now and available on Android and iOS.

I built the game for Android first, because it made testing each build easier due to not having to use Xcode, and then I ported the game to iOS.

On the Android side, the controls were perfect and there were no usability issues.

When I played the game on my iOS devices however, I got laggy and error prone responses from the touch controls.

This completely baffled me at first.