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]

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.