OOoooo...

[julzerator]

Fun Factor = Interesting Decisions / Actual Time Played.

I want to see the other 4 as well.

(Thanks for sharing wakko)

[EDIT] It looks like Part two with the other 4 has already been posted.

Comments

[wakko.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with your assumptions.

My experience has been that each player chooses different things.

Some players are content with playing at a disadvantage in order to maintain their level of involvement. To some, that can still be fun.

Some players may prioritize competitiveness, and use all available information to gain a tactical advantage. To them, that's fun.

Some players don't like competition at all, and will stick to the single player campaigns, or bot-based multiplayer, where they have more control over the difficulty of the opponent. This is how they have fun.

Ultimately gameplay is about fun. Everyone makes an active choice to play the game the way that is most fun to them. To restrict a style of play, is to restrict the ability of somebody to enjoy the game.

Attempting to tightly control the play experience means drastically restricting your possible market of players. If nothing else, that simply is not a good business decision.

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

I think we are 95% in agreement here. The only sticking point is that I think there should be more "black box" games. Perhaps that's an opinion I hold because of my background in game design and in my particular sense of enjoyment.

You name a game, I've probably played it. From min/max Car Wars spreadsheets to Diceless Amber Roleplaying LARPS. I love games. Personally I find the mechanics get in the way of most game play. There are already a ton of games where you DO need to know every detail to play them competitively (CoreWars, C+ Robots, The Open Racing Car Simulator). When I play these games I *really* get into the numbers and the rule because that's what you are playing with.

But if I'm playing WarHammer and the opponent pulls out his calculator to figure out how many Elves will die from his Empire's bow volley it kinda takes the fun out. Hey General! Just tell them to fire or not! You don't have a calculator or know the world is run by d6.

An... I went too far. I was trying to agree with you and I went all rant. Sorry. :-(

[wakko.livejournal.com]

No worries. I *do* agree with you that certain people take the fun out of games.

For me, the ruining factor is the people and not the game.

Black box games have their place. I loved all of the old Infocom text adventures (Zork, Planetfall, etc) and Sierra's series of adventure games (King's Quest, Space Quest, etc). These are games that only work as black boxes because the whole point is figuring out how something works.

However, I see a difference between a game whose whole point is to be a black box, and games that shoehorn themselves into being a black box for some largely false premise that gamers want less UI.

IMO, most gamers want a UI that makes sense and allows you to perform tasks efficiently. However, some games are simply complex enough that making a good UI is very hard. (Romance of the Three Kingdoms comes to mind)

I personally think that cutting out the UI in the name of simplicity is intellectually lazy. Creating a good, useful UI that ends up being simple is a long, involved design process.

Believe me, I have the same frustration with munchkin gamers as you do. However, you can't solve a people problem with game design.

Hell, if you could solve people problems with arbitrary rules, politicians all over the world would actually have a useful job. But that's another rant entirely. ;-)

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between simple UI and elegant UI. I think he's probably talking about the former. You are right that dumbing down a UI simply for the sake of simplicity is bad.

The other side of this is information. Do you really need to know how many points of damage a sword does? Wouldn't it be enough to just know it was dangerous? I guess too many games are based on leveling... and that leads to needing better and better things. A first level sword wont do for a 10th level player.

[wakko.livejournal.com]

Do you really need to know how many points of damage a sword does? Wouldn't it be enough to just know it was dangerous?

Unfortunately, you'll never find a video game that works like that. Computers are number crunching machines. They don't handle concepts like "dangerous" or "benign".

So, while we can hide or abstract away the numbers, they're still lurking inside the game, just below the surface.

There are plenty of games that don't require exposing the raw data to the user. However, it's almost impossible to find a non-abstract computerized strategy game that doesn't involve some sort of number crunching.

This is, perhaps, where there is the most trade-off and the most difficulty. This is also where Soren was focusing his argument.

A strategy game shouldn't be a black box.