What Makes Games FUN (Psychology in Gaming)

You have to prove these claims you're making with studies. Textbook authors usually do what you're doing here. They make up stuff that sounds sensible.

Great!

You can't necessarily strip a game down to raw gameplay to see if it's fun or not, and then treat graphics, sound, etc. as bonuses. That's great if your game is still fun as a graybox experience. But lots of good games won't be. In particular, lots of games need audio and visual cues to communicate the gameplay to the player. But beyond that, whole genres of games, like role-playing, require these non-gameplay elements (particularly story, even in paper RPGs) to keep players invested. Play a great action game like Sekiro without sound, and you lose mood-setting music and the rewarding sound of weapons clashing when you parry. The Super Mario World coin pickup sound is iconic for a good reason. Just the opening title screen of classic Final Fantasy games plays the scale theme...the list goes on.

1. the core lesson my game teaches is accurate experimentation.
2. it keeps itself interesting by dividing player focus between themselves and the opponent, and new potential combinations of in game mechanics
3. the game will become boring if the players stop experimenting or are unable to

Evolutionary theory is unscientific nonsense

Congratulations for the content, you managed to synthesize well what was extremely useful.

Perfect video! However, while it might be true for most games that removing everything (SFX, story, etc) and checking the game itself, its core, whether or not it's fun, is the ultimate test, there are Telltale games (as well as Quantic Dreams, Supermassive Games, etc.) where there is minimal gameplay, and the fun is the story. Without the story, there is no game. There is a little bit of exploration, but what motivates us to play those games (and what makes it fun), is that we want to know more about the story, and, when we are so engaged, we want the best outcome for our character (and their entourage). The game would then fall into the category of "Calculation of Odds and Predictions of Events". With the information we have about the game, and what other characters told us (and our exploration within this world), when we want to make a choice (which character to kill in the game, to hide from someone or run away, sacrifice a friend or sacrifice yourself), and to make that choice, we use what we know previously to calculate odds and predict the game's next events so that we have the best outcome. I think it is also fun because it teaches us about real life; it's, as you said, a simulation, and a pattern recognition that we learn about in games, without having to go through it in real life. Making those choices offers a challenge (putting aside desire for mastery) and can help us navigate life better or helping our community better (to a certain extent). That's how I feel about story games, where it's focused on our choices having consequences and very little gameplay (again, like Telltale's Batman, Walking Dead, or Supermassive's Devil In Me or House Of Ashes, or Quantic Dreams' Detroit Become Human). Of course, there is the element of fun, which is living a story, which is, I believe, the same fun we get from movies [suspense/humour/feeling emotions/learning about others/identifying ourselves through others in a story), but more (because we are in the game).

-Ziad G

This video is awesome. First time ever watching a video from you, and I'm already subscribed. Thanks for the great info.

Nice and explanetory video! I searched for content like this and was not disappointed =)
I am an amature coder, building a turn based Stategy Space survival game in python - SpaceCraft'er.
I have tons of ideas, what i want the game to be, but must climb the "learn to code" moutain, one centimeter at time.
I will take on your challange and Answer your three Questions:
1) The core lesson is to teach economics, return on investement and risk manegement.
2) the game keeps itself interesting by: Advancing of mechanics, as the game goes on. Combat will get increased number of choices. Mining and crafting will have to be estimated if it is worth the time investment, with over time, more things to consider. And quests will have tu be estimated by the player, if they are worth taking up.
3) The game will become boring if: The patterns become to recgnisable, or if players are not into economic, strategic, thinking at all.

i was playing ow lmwo but yeah this is real

What even is this background music?

itd be cool to deliberately make life more fun by using these principles

What is that snowboard game that was being shown?

my answer for the 3 questions are 1. don’t go into the woods at night because you’ll get chased by a flat png of a glizzy, 2. it doesn’t do that, 3. about 5 minutes

This video was extremely helpful, especially to a beginner who just recently decided she wants to start a video game. I know I have a lot to learn, and taking into account all the points you have listed will really help me in the long run. I always knew variety is an important factor when it comes to video games, but I never thought of it in depth like this. It's really eye-opening. I love this video!!

My game teaches
1) Always be ready and quick
2)yes
3) after it get popular

Where I have the most fun in a videogame, there's chaos.

up the voice bro

1. Teamwork and having fun like those nostalgic good ol games, like pixel gun 3D!
2. Playing with your friends will make it interesting in many ways, it'll have no boundaries except your enemies, you can explore, do whatever you want, go on adventures to find Easter eggs, and defeat your enemies from those secret places!
3. It doesn't, except when you play it too much, like, really really too much, for like... 4 continuous days

Extra. My game doesn't have the equality border, and what I mean by that is, look at fortnite, and every game like it, they give you a chance to be equal with your enemies, they don't randomize the chances of you getting something till the point where you could get 10 ammo in a rare chest or whatever, they will atleast give you 2 weapons and alot of ammo and materials when you open the worst chest there is, why was fortnite good? Well, you couldn't get weapons that easily, and it was fun running away from people while screaming for your dumb friends help, and you didn't die easily, because that dudes aim was bad, and if you were that dude, then you'd scream happily because you're thinking rhat you're gonna get him and kill him, in my game, the controls are good but because it's for mobile, it'll be a bit harder to aim, and more fun, it'll give you that noob feel, and guns and ammo will be randomly distributed in the whole map, so your enemy may get the best weapons, and you may get the worst weapon of all, or you may even not get one at all, and the fun in it is that it's controls are not heavy, it's fast, smooth, but balanced, so you can run away from the people shooting you, and because the controls don't feel heavy, you'd be stealthy, you can hide in one of these secret places, not the ones where everyone knows, but the ones where not so many people go to, even if they know the place, and there wouldn't be so little or so many secret places, it's not even a secret place, it's a known place, but feels out of boundaries, just like the clouds in pixel gun 3D, you'd get that happy feeling, why? Well because you can run away, hide from your enemies, get a pistol and demolish them, the best thing is that even if you have the best gun you'd need to aim good and aiming good in a mobile game is hard, but it's gonna be fun, I can't explain it but my game is gonna be nostalgic.

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Nice video keep up 👏

one of the best case study for game design is a game called crossfar on steam.

the point near the end is wrong, removing all the graphics is staring at a plain screen, and removing all of the story could involve removing gameplay changing sections of the game

Thank you for making this. This was a fun video because I learned something new. I guess now I can explain clearly to other people why video games are fun or what makes a good video game. The fact that different games will appeal to different people is exactly why we should not care about whether someone likes a game or not because even if it is good, it just might not be their cup of tea. That's why I often judge games for myself and found out which categories I like. You can also develop an interest for more categories, I certainly have.

Greate video :)

yo, this vid was beautiful 😎 thanks a lot for sharing this knowledge, i was looking for EXACTLY this typa shit. im planning on making a road trip game and i wondered whether itll be fun or not and ig variation was the key from the beginning on. i LOVE variation in videogames and i often see it lacking here n there, so my game will have variation as the number 1 priority 😎 how? simple. by obv adding more things, and adding rare events or whatever. if u for example set the spawnrate of a structure to a low rate, it will have 2 effects, 1. itll become special, no matter what the structure is and whether it can be looted or sth and 2. the player will always have the feeling that theres still sth to explore and to see, the feeling of an empty world is reduced 😎 peace, stay chillin, again thx for this vid, also thx for reading my comment till here, it got kinda long, and its still getting longer with each mf word im adding 💀 yea i should rly stop now. like, right no- fuck am i doing here 😂 peace yo 😎

So much amazing information in one video. Thank you for sharing!

What category do the sandbox, city builders and tycoons fall into? Are these considered as puzzles?

Great video! What's the snowboarding game, and what's the last game with the woman walking with a sword? Thanks

You have a very great way of storytelling. Thank you for this great video and I hope more will come in the future, subbed!

Great topic, I loved the video!

Looking forward to the video including beautiful ascetics and visual effects. keep up the good work!

Good Video, Just needed to drop a comment

I feel bad for Man untd

Me a bad elden ring player: fun???

Your point of stripping the game down to it's core gameplay to determine whether or not it's fun is really interesting! this is such a helpful video, thank you!

I loved this video
Even though I quit gamedev for good, it was such a enjoyable content to watch.
Thanks

For my game personally, i think it is a good bit of fun because it makes you feel like a badass from the 1st second yoh play, but this is also a disadvantage because i feel that its hard to raise the experience if you already start off having fun

Thank you for helpful video, Pal!

Great video