When focusing on fun fails

Since of a past as sort-of-toys (explained nicely right here and here) essential features of games are: How "entertaining" they are, replay worth and how extended they last. Evaluations typically take this into account and in turn this makes developers concentrate a lot on making a game "entertaining", "replayable" and "long lasting". I believe this type of considering (which I am at times guilty of myself...) can seriously hurt a game. I think designers shall concentrate entirely on what kind of experience they want to provide and make that come across as properly as feasible!

I have pointed out in a earlier article how generating combat exciting can hurt the experience in a horror game, specially if scaring the player is the major objective. Alternatively of attempting to make the combat as frightening as achievable, combat is typically added with tiny believed on how it impacts the expertise and considerably far more concentrate on how "fun" it is. So instead of producing a scary horror game a enjoyable shooter is produced (which is not always what is intended).

I not too long ago completed playing the second Professor Layton game and although I enjoyed it fairly a lot, it also had the same sort of problem. It is very obvious that Professor Layton has been made to last lengthy and that a great deal of effort has been spent on this. The game has a number of side quests (collecting pieces for a camera, creating a hamster loose weight, and so on) and none of these are genuinely connected to the game's story. There is also numerous puzzles in the game (150 of them) and since of this a lot of them are just diverse versions of the exact same type or just genuinely boring and unimaginative. I feel that the game could have been a much better experience without these extra bits. For instance, with fewer puzzles far more concentrate could have been put on creating the puzzles that the player do encounter more varied and fascinating. As an alternative, numerous of the better puzzles are place in as extras or component of side quests and a play via focusing on the story will miss out on them. If the goal with Layton has been to give the player an experience of getting a puzzle solving detective, focusing on producing the game last longer has undoubtedly produced it worse.

The last instance I want to give is from the horror genre and issues Dead Space: Extraction (which Jens have been playing lately), an on-rails-shooter for the Wii. The game tries challenging to immerse the player and produce a frightening knowledge, but makes a severe error. To give the game much more replay worth and "fun", the player has to hunt for bonus boxes, some appearing for a extremely quick period. This occurs all of the time and has numerous adverse effects. Reduce-scenes becomes treasure hunting sections and alternatively fearing what may well lurk behind the next corner the player focuses on catching goodies. Collecting these bonuses is of course optional, but obtaining extra ammo has a great impact on the gameplay and bonuses also include interesting story material (in the type of audio logs). Worst of all, it makes the on-rails aspect a lot much more noticeable. If the player just barely misses a bonus since of a adjust in view, the player will want the character to appear back at the earlier area. This creates a sort of struggle among player and protagonist, seriously reducing immersion! I believe this a very clear example of how focusing on the wrong functions creates a much less compelling encounter.

Of course games must not take too tiny time to comprehensive or be absent of fitting replaybility. Nonetheless, I believe that it is really wrong when it detracts from the wanted encounter. Creating confident the game is enjoyable, replayable and lengthy lasting should not be a style purpose in itself, but something that is added if feasible.