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What makes a game good?

A business makes something people want to buy. People want to buy 3 qualities: uniqueness, beauty, and elegance. I'm not commercially successful yet, but I believe designers will arrive to those 3 answers, because they are asking the same question. What makes something good?

People want uniqueness

Uniqueness gives us protection from competitors. 1) it makes us the best in the world, because we have no competitors on release day. 2) It makes our product hard to copy.

Uniqueness can be achieved naturally, we probably don't even need to try. Try searching on Steam for 1 subgenre tag, and 1 setting tag. Shooter (subgenre of action), and sci-fi returns 2.5 k games. Most people will have only played the top 10%, so our games just need to be different than 2.5 k*0.1 = 250 games to seem "innovative".

20% to 30% innovation

100% innovation is completely new, and will require people to study how our product works. 40% to 50% innovation seems good for expert audiences, but requires a lot of research from us, and alienates beginners. 20% to 30% is new enough to get early adopters to notice, but also simple enough to lure in the average person. Less than 20% innovation is bad, because competitors can easily copy us. A fresh art style, and core feature is probably enough to get 20% innovation.

People want beauty

Beauty moves us. Something is beautiful if it makes us feel an emotion. It is the main reason people buy our products. We should spend 90% of our time on beauty.

Writers will quickly learn that characters are driven by emotions. Seriously, one of the most popular writing references is called The Emotion Thesaurus. People watch horror movies and play horror games to feel scared. They watch romance movies to feel love. They learn skills to feel competent and accepted.

When prototyping a game, a good starting point is 1 core emotion, 1 opposite of the core, and 2 supporting emotions. An action RPG's core emotion is power, the opposite is helplessness, sprinkled in with wonder and pride.

Next, think of features that derive off that emotion. In an ARPG, the feeling of power can come from spells and abilities. For helplessness, we have difficult enemies, and a dreadful setting. For wonder, we place new items/ toys on the map. For pride, we add a betting system.

People want elegance

Elegance is complexity made simple. Elegance is beautiful too, but it also serves to make our product popular. We work on it after we know our product is beautiful. It makes our product user friendly, cheaper to make, faster to make, productive, and harmonious.

To achieve elegance, rush the first draft. The first draft is not a prototype or demo. It is complete game with crappy art, no music, and no sound. Use sketches as placeholder art. The first draft is like a sketch in that it is easy to modify.

The first draft also gives us vision. If we work chapter to chapter, episode to episode, or level to level, then we might spend a lot of time on one part to later find out it doesn't fit well. It's basically guess work. With a first draft, we see a trend or pattern in our work, and can guide our revisions towards that trend. This makes our work feel harmonious, like one masterpiece, instead of like a patch work of ideas.

Story adds long-term retention

Game systems can provide 10s, 100s, or 1000s of hours of entertainment. Still, gameplay will eventually get stale. Change must happen. Dramatic changes to the game systems will anger fans, so changes must be done slowly. In comparison, characters are expected to change rapidly in stories. We can use the story to keep loyal fans interested while slowly changing the game systems.

Story focused games are risky, because people prefer to get their stories from movies, TV shows, or mangas. Sequels guarantee money, making it safer to focus on the story. Consider making stories effortless, since people are used to effortless stories: books, podcasts, manga, TV, and so on.

How games tell better stories

Genre, pacing, style, theme, tone, and narration are comparable to other media: books, comics, films, TV shows. Where games excel is action, setting, mood, dialogue, and plot.

Doing the action is better than witnessing it. For setting and mood, who doesn't want to explore the world their favorite characters live in? With dialogue choices, we can ask our favorite characters their opinions! Plot is cause and effect. Not many games branch the main plot as it is expensive to do. Instead, branches are explored in subplots/ side quests.

Dialogue

Regardless of medium, writers still have to write outlines, character profiles, and lore/ backstories. Any book on writing should teach these skills. For games, they also need to learn about branching dialogue.

I found there are 4 types of dialogue choices: plot driven, questions, quizzes, and skill checks. Plot choices move the plot or character arc forward. Question choices let the player learn more about the world. For instance, we can ask a character about their opinion, about their past, objects in the room, or about the world in general. Quizzes can be used to lock content from the player. Skill checks turn the dialogue into a game system.

Fantasy world

We read fiction to escape the blandness of reality. Try to add fantastical elements to our world: magic, aliens, demons, super powers, etc. It is an easy way to make our story feel epic.

Gameplay adds short-term retention

Again, people can play a game for countless hours. It should be our priority. Fun is handled by system designers. They create goals and rules, but let the player chose the strategies, tactics, and rewards.

Reward skill

Many games have side objectives that give bonus rewards. Say the player is on a date, they are given 1 mandatory cooking puzzle, and 2 optional ones. If they solve optional puzzle 1, another conversation might be unlocked. If they solve optional puzzle 2, they might get a kiss.

Subplots

Subplots do not change the main plot. Which means the system designer can put experimental systems there. If our work life is the main plot, then our personal life is the subplot. Our work and personal life are related, but kept separate. Subplots can be activities we do in our free time: dating, vacations, road trips, parties, shopping for gifts, exploring a haunted house.

Dates are a popular choice as they can take place in attractive locations: a restaurant, at home, stand-up show, musical show, magic show, museum, concert, zoo, parades, fairs and expos, etc.

Exploration adds breaks

Good writing and system design feels like a roller coaster of emotions. Exploration gives players time to rest. Exploration is handled by level designers. They create the level, then place objects in them, like characters, items, lights, and events.

Lights

Lights can lead players to an area, but they don't help them identify what can be interacted with. Make objects that can be interacted with stand out by highlighting them, making them one color, putting an icon near them, etc.

In general, players won't notice anything, unless told. Give audio, text, and visual feedback for events. Alternatively, darkness can hide secret doors, ladders, paths, and items.

Reward exploration

A few levels later, we won't even need to give players explicit directions or goals. They will automatically pick a direction, because they know there will be some reward waiting for them.

Story rewards

I use items to develop characters. An item might show off a character's personality like a thankful letter to a coworker. It may also hint at the character's goals and next actions, like a plane ticket or gun.

My game has text, and image based items. Another item could be an audio log, but I don't have the budget for that. Text based items I use are to do lists, timeline lists, sticky notes, letters, and summaries. They are usually 1 to 3 sentences long. Image based items I use are group photos, selfies, posters, charts, and book/ comic/ magazine covers. I'll also let players click and object, and a bigger image of the object will show up to reveal story hints.

3 core skills for solo developers

The 3 core skills are: writing or system design, level design, and programming to put our assets in the game.

If I could start over...

People are afraid of working on projects that will fail. If they can play our first draft, then they can see our game is mostly done. They may work for free, because the game will be releasing within a year.

Graphics Matter

One of the most efficient ways to communicate beauty is through visuals. Go on Steam, and search any genre tag. Most games on the first couple of pages look good, or stylish.

However, we should not focus on graphics until we finish the first draft. Art slows down iteration. System design is the most cost and time efficient skill to learn. Programming 1 feature can give players countless hours of entertainment. Art would be the next most efficient as we an reuse it. Writing is very inefficient as we cannot reuse most of it. The exception is character reactions, or shouts.

2D vs 3D

2D games are faster, and cheaper to make, letting us reach beauty faster. If our game sells well, we know our core game design is rock solid.

If we focused on writing + level design on our first game, we can add system design to the sequel. If we focused on system + level design, then learn writing. Our sequel can incorporate the missing game design skill, and be upgraded to 3D.

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