Games that Just Aren't Fun

Some games aren't fun. At some point in gameplay, the game ceases to amuse and becomes a chore for the player. Since games are typically supposed to be fun, this is usually a bad thing. The game designer didn't do their job correctly and has produced a bad game.

Although it's very easy to label an un-fun game as a bad game, it goes deeper than that. As I see it, there are three kinds of not-fun games:

1. Games that were never fun because of bad design
2. Games that started fun but became soul-crushing over time
3. Games that were never fun, but that's the point

Games in Category 1 fit the label of bad design. The controls are sticky, the bosses are too hard, the characters are insufferable, the storyline meanders without point; for whatever reason, this game was supposed to be enjoyable but trips out of the starting gate.

Category 2 games have a solid core of gameplay. They are enjoyable and fun at the start but then typically have some sort of bar-filling Skinner's Box that keeps the player coming back for more. These games range from enormous MMO's like World of Warcraft to casual games like Cookie Clicker and 2048. What they all have in common is that sticky, addictive mechanic that keeps fans coming back for another hit of dopamine. In this case, the game designers have usually done their job correctly. These games are often designed with an obsessive personality in mind and are built to draw their players into just one more round before bed.

Category 3 games are a bit different. Their purpose was to be interactive, yes, informative, yes, but not fun. They exist to make a statement. The most recent example I can cite is Papers, Please. It's essentially Desk Job the Video Game in terms of its mechanics. At the end of the day, though, its point is to be critical and satirical, not fun. Every Day the Same Dream is similar; as a white-collar worker, the game content is mundane and soul crushing, but in doing so it is criticizing the monotony of an office job. Games like these are built to inform. They might have moments of entertainment, but at the end of the day they are not fun nor do they want to be.

Game Idea Repost

I had a thought when I was reading a blog for Game Design; if anyone can think of any games like this, let me know because now I want to play one:

"What if... we took fighting games and FPS's and smashed them together? Are there any games that do that? I wonder if you could keep some of the combo-based dynamics of 1v1 fighting games and apply them to a larger multiplayer setting. For example: what if you were playing a classic FPS game like Capture the Flag or Control point except that instead of using shooting combat, you encouraged some sort of hand-to-hand dueling atmosphere with some stealth thrown in? This probably already exists somewhere but it could be an interesting way to take a fresh look at fighting games."

Inspiration Source: Walking Meditation

Taking a walk can be an amazing source of inspiration for how the world works. There are plenty of things that go into creating a virtual environment–buildings, plants, people, animals–that are relatively easy to emulate because of how often you consciously make note of them. However, there are also plenty of more subtle elements like background sounds, echoes, light sources, and the general "feeling" of a place that are often more unconsciously observed. This makes them more difficult to replicate and can lead to an experience feeling fake or shallow.

The point of this exercise is to use a form of walking meditation to focus on some of the things you might not normally focus on. By consciously focusing on a certain more subtle aspect from our world, you will have a more concrete reference point when you are building a new one of your own.

Here's the basic idea: when you're walking somewhere, pick an element of your walk and try to focus on it for the entirety of your walk. Some of these take a bit of practice, so make sure your walk is at least 15 minutes long. It's also important to stick to one element per walk, at least with a new element, so that you can teach yourself to hone in on that particular kind of detail. I've included some suggestions below for elements to focus on:

Sounds

Pay attention to the sounds around you. The sound of your footsteps: wet concrete, dry concrete, leaves, snow, puddles. Cars: engines, breaks, revving, honking, screeching. Natural noises like rain, dripping or rushing water, animals in the brush, and the wind. Human noises like footsteps, talking, laughing, doors opening and closing, music.

Figure out where the sounds are coming from. Are the sounds moving? Where are they going? Can you hear the Doppler effect? Pay attention to where you're walking, of course, but focus on the sounds around you.

Sources of Light

This is more effective at night. Identify where the light is coming from: street lights, head lights from cars, open and closed windows, airplanes, traffic lights.

Watch how the light reflects or diffuses on the materials around it. Watch if the shadows are sharp or soft and how distorted they are. Watch how your surroundings change as light is introduced or removed. Watch how the color starts seeping into the area when a car's headlights come closer and how everything fades when they speed away.

Shapes of Buildings

Look at the buildings around you: houses, apartments, shops, offices, schools. How large are they? What materials are they made of? What's it shaped like; is it a giant block of material or does it have recessed areas? How do you get in: where are the doors? What do the doors look like? Are there stairs to the door? How dirty is the building; does it look like it's been around for a while? How does your perspective change as you walk by it? What does it look like in relation to the buildings around it; big, small, grand, dingy, impressive, sad, abandoned? What kind of detail can you find in the brickwork, around the doors or windows, around the roof? Is anyone entering or leaving the building? What do they look like they're there for?

The "Feeling" of Your Surroundings

Unfocus your attention. Rather than looking at a specific part of the environment in front of you, try to look at all of it. As you walk forward, how do things move in your vision in relation to each other? Can you detect the bob of your vision as you footsteps move your body up and down? Try to look at the world as if you are looking at it through a screen and take it all in at once.

Materials

What are things made of? Does the material seem new or has it been around for a while? Has it been exposed to the elements? How does light reflect off of it? How has it been combined with or attached to other materials? Does it look smooth, rough, glossy, fuzzy, prickly? Does it look heavy, light, bulky, delicate? Why would someone have picked that particular material for what it is currently being used for? Where has it broken? Where does it look like it would break? What does it feel like, smell like? When you tap it, what sound does it make?

Man-Made Artifacts

Take note of things that were clearly made by people. Vehicles: cars, buses, bicycles. Infrastructure: roads, bridges, traffic lights, bus stops, sidewalks, fences. Buildings, trash cans, toys, trash, lawn chairs. How do people in this area use their surroundings? Is there any effort to work with nature? Everything manmade was designed by someone; who made it? For what purpose? Why did they put it where they did? What sort of laws would dictate what can and cannot be in this area? What sort of unspoken rules apply to the objects?

Trash

An extension of the above suggestion and includes things like gum on the sidewalk, bits of paper, lost gloves, trash cans on the side of the road, dropped food, and things of that nature. What constitutes trash? Where has it gathered? Does it look like it was intentionally trash or has it become trash out of loss or neglect? Would you touch it? Why or why not? Does it look salvageable? Where do you think it came from? Do you think the owner misses it? What does it tell you about the owner?

Other Walkers

Warning: people don't like strangers looking at them. The point of this exercise is to learn about people in your environment, not to be a creep. Unless you want to try some variation of this meditation that involves scaring other people, don't stare at them. A cursory glance should be more than enough. 

What are they wearing? What does their hair look like, if you can see their face, what sort of expression do they have? Can you imagine who they are, what they're doing, what they might be thinking about? How are they reacting to others in their environment? If there are two or more people in a group, how are they interacting?

Plants

Take note of trees, grass, flowerbeds, moss, climbing vines, weeds between the sidewalk, and other plants around you.

Where are there plants growing? Is someone clearly taking care of them or are they unmanaged? Do they seem out of control? Did someone plant this or did it grow by itself? Would you call it pretty? How old does it look? Has it been damaged? Does it seem healthy? If you could give it an emotion, which emotion would you give it?

Ugliness

What around you would you classify as "ugly"? Why? Is it the shape, color, material, consistency? Is it organic, man-made, or both? Does it stem from decay, disinterest, cheapness, or something else? Did it become ugly over time or was it always that way? What would you do to make it "better"? Can it be improved, is it a lost cause, or is it better because it is ugly? Does it fit in with its surroundings or does it stick out to you?

Director: [QUARTERLY REPORT] Games with Judges

What happens when the winner of a game is chosen subjectively?

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with my friend about our tastes in board games. He prefers Eurogames: Seven Wonders, Ticket to Ride, Power Grid, and other high-strategy point-based games. When I expressed my preference for games like Apples to Apples and Channel A, he raised an eyebrow and replied "but those aren't games."

Are they?

Games like Apples to Apples, Channel A, and Cards Against Humanity all have a similar ruleset. There are two sets of cards, what I will refer to as "cue" cards and "player" cards. At the beginning of a round, one player will take on the role as judge. They flip over one or more cue cards from the cue card deck to serve as an inspiration. The remaining players then sift through their hands of player cards to find a response to the cue cards. The stated goal is to find a player card that is the most interesting, creative, or funny in response to the cue cards.

But which card is the most interesting? The uncertain element in this kind of game is the judge. Which card they ultimately choose as the winner is entirely subjective; what could be funny or compelling to the rest of the players doesn't matter if the judge chooses a different card as the winner.

So is this a game?  There are points: whoever's card the judge chooses gets a point. There is a clear objective: come up with fun card combinations to win points, whoever has the most points wins. But a funny thing happens when a group of friends starts playing one of these games...

Let's take Channel A as our example. In this particular flavor of the game, the judge is the producer for a company that makes anime. They draw five possible cue cards that contain common anime tropes: Monster Hunters, Supernatural Battles, Kid Detective, Cyberpunk Dystopia, and Coming of Age are a few examples. They pick their two favorites, turn to the other players, and say something along the lines of, "Alright, team, we've had our marketing folks hold a few focus group sessions and we've determined that this season the kids are really into Monster Hunters and Coming of Age dramas. Show me an anime that has those two elements and we'll make a fortune!"

The players look at their hands of player cards. The cards have single words like Angel, Lucky, School, Robo, Rune, and Eternal. The player uses these cards to pick out a title that matches the cue cards. They pick between two and four cards and take turns pitching their anime ideas to the producer: "Picture this: there's another world hidden in the shadows of modern day New York City. An underground society of dark engineers have harnessed the power of an Old Magic and are weaving spells with machinery into an army of cyborg monsters. Of course, the world cannot know of the existence of magic. Thus, the ancient line of wizards safeguarding these arcane secrets have founded a new school to train worthy teenagers in the ways of mechanomagic. Our heroes must learn to work together and control their strange new powers in... ROBO RUNE SCHOOL!" The player reveals their title cards to the group.

The titles people come up with can be extraordinarily funny, clever, and witty. On the other hand, they can be hilariously bad. There's a ton of table talk; people laugh and joke about the best titles or rib the people with bad ideas. Occasionally the laughter will become so contagious that nobody at the table can catch their breath for several minutes. Sure, somebody's winning, but does anyone even care anymore? People keep playing until they get bored and then only briefly note who got the most points if at all. It isn't about the points anymore; nobody cares who won. It's become a social experience. Does this make it less of a game?

Some might argue that it isn't; it's a social experience and an icebreaker, not a game. I'd argue that this makes it more of a game. The focus becomes about the act of playing and less about who wins. I suppose it depends on what you want out of a game. If the point of a game for you is to win, then perhaps this particular style is not as good for you as a game as Seven Wonders or basketball. If the point of a game is to enjoy the experience and interact with other people, though, then these fit the description perfectly.

Director: [QUARTERLY REPORT] Friendly spite in games

Our recent success with Chopscotch brings up an interesting question: what place does spite have in games?

Our lengthly and in-depth observation of human psychology has confirmed the presence of spiteful behavior in humans, i.e. the occasional desire to deliberately cause annoyance or grief in another human. We have further observed that by and large this behavior is viewed as rather juvenile; those who act out of spite are looked down on in anger and annoyance by others.

And yet, a large portion of Earth's games include some form of competition. For any game that pits players against each other, we take it as a given that where there is a winner there must also be a loser. When a soccer goalie blocks a score they as much taking a point away from the opposing team as they are protecting their team's chances of winning. As the goal is blocked, a collective groan rises from the opposing team, the kicker scowls and swears under their breath. The goalie has deliberately caused annoyance from their successful block.

Humans have developed a special word for spite in the context of games: sportsmanship. It seems to be an agreement that a certain amount of spite is allowed to the players but only in the context of the game and its rules. A goalie may indeed block a goal but in doing so they are well aware that in return the opposing team will rush at them with renewed fervor at the next opportunity. Players may also expect that outside of the game, those that were previously their enemies are now entitled to peace from spiteful behavior until the next round.

Our question is this: given that the rules of sportsmanship allow for an acceptable amount of in-game anger, where is the limit? At what point does frustration caused by spite outweigh the fun?

Let us take, for another example, the board game Munchkin. Players take turns to try and level their in-game characters to 10. The closer a particular character gets to 10, the more likely that the remaining players will gang up on them to prevent them from reaching that level and winning. Spite runs rampant in Munchkin. For some, it is too much; they dislike the game. For others, the most satisfying part of the game is the opportunity to bring a successful player to their knees simply because they are doing a better job.

This is an intriguing area to explore. Get on it, R&D.

R&D: Re: Renaming Hopscotch

Marketing: That's an excellent idea! Chopscotch it is.

[Excerpt from discussion log]

[Red] You see that? Can you believe those #&@$ in Marketing? I did most of the work on the hopscotch game.

[Dev] I resent that. 

[Red] It's true.

[Dev] Why are you complaining? You don't like them. Now you don't have to talk to them. Just let me handle communications from now on, okay?

Marketing: Renaming Hopscotch

Dev: Excellent game. We have noticed how the game sticks resemble humorously large chopsticks. We propose that you call the game Chopscotch.