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.
