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I'd agree that 2048 is quite forgiving --- you can make some pretty serious errors and still recover to win [1]. I wouldn't say that makes it poorly designed, h

I'd agree that 2048 is quite forgiving --- you can make some pretty serious errors and still recover to win [1]. I wouldn't say that makes it poorly designed, however; harder isn't always better, and making a game too hard can make it less fun, so it's about finding a balance that works. That said, flappy bird came out at about the same time as 2048 [2], and it was absurdly hard (at least for me) and still very successful. [1] In my previous post, http://jdlm.info/articles/2017/08/05/markov-chain-2048.html http://jdlm.info/articles/2017/08/05/markov-chain-2048.html, I managed to win in around the minimum number of moves, 938.8 on average, several times. I think that was often because I was able to recover from blunders, rather than because I never made them. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flappy_Bird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flappy_Bird --- both were very popular in early 2014.

doppp 9y ago
Popular does not mean well-designed. Neither was I implying that a difficult game is a well-designed game. But Threes is way better designed than 2048. The super long email chain I linked to earlier really explains why in great detail. I encourage anyone interested in game design and how indie games are made to take some time to read it.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  The intro post says, paraphrasing, "we wanted to design a game with simple rules that was impossible to beat, we succeeded, therefore our game is better". Perhaps the authors prefer games that are impossible to beat - I think it's very unlikely that the target audience of 2048 and similar games do, or in fact most people. Perhaps neither Threes nor 2048 are very well designed - Threes because building a game that is impossible to beat is easy but not actually much fun for most people to play, and 2048 because it wound up with overly methodical ways to beat it easily?
- hnlmorg 9y ago
  > Popular does not mean well-designed. Maybe but playing devil's advocate for a moment: given the point of a game is to be enjoyable and popularity is as good a measure of group enjoyment as any, you could then argue that a "better designed" game which fewer people prefer is arguably "over designed" compared to the simpler and more popular game. Ergo one could argue that popularity is a perfectly good measure of how well designed a game is. Personally what draws me to 2048 is that it required just the right amount of thinking. It doesn't stimulate me so I can play it fatigued, but equally it doesn't bore me. And it is just the right level of difficulty where I can regularly beat it but equally I cannot take winning as an assumption so I still have to try to beat it. Going back to your Flappy Birds example, that was hard as hell but the mechanics were really really easy to learn and you were only competing against your own personal best (there's no finish goal, no boss, just an infinite number of pipes to navigate through). That means as tough as the game is, it's only as hard as the individual is good at it.
  - dspillett 9y ago
    > popularity is as good a measure of group enjoyment Popularity can depend on a large number of factors. One that has no (direct) effect on quality is cost: threes wasn't free initially, 2048 was, so far more people played 2048. This is why "freemium" is such a common model, trying to get the exposure/market-share benefit of being free while still pulling in income from the product or related addons/services. If you look at "popularity" of similar products of each type as measured by market share or absolute download numbers you most likely see free far outstrips freemium which in turn outstrips any product with an up-front cost.
- vageli 9y ago
  > When an automated script that alternates pressing up and right and left every hundreth (sic) time can beat the game, then well, that's broken. Is Threes a better game? We think so. To this day, only about 6 people in the world have ever seen a 6144 and nobody in the world has yet to “beat” Threes. But that’s what’s better to us as game designers. We worked really hard to create a simple game system with interesting complexity that you can play forever. To me, it seems the argument of the linked article basically boils down to: their game is too easy so it's bad. Does a game need a really long email chain of back and forth to show that it was well-designed?

doppp 9y ago

Popular does not mean well-designed. Neither was I implying that a difficult game is a well-designed game. But Threes is way better designed than 2048. The super long email chain I linked to earlier really explains why in great detail. I encourage anyone interested in game design and how indie games are made to take some time to read it.

vertex-four 9y ago
The intro post says, paraphrasing, "we wanted to design a game with simple rules that was impossible to beat, we succeeded, therefore our game is better". Perhaps the authors prefer games that are impossible to beat - I think it's very unlikely that the target audience of 2048 and similar games do, or in fact most people. Perhaps neither Threes nor 2048 are very well designed - Threes because building a game that is impossible to beat is easy but not actually much fun for most people to play, and 2048 because it wound up with overly methodical ways to beat it easily?
hnlmorg 9y ago
> Popular does not mean well-designed. Maybe but playing devil's advocate for a moment: given the point of a game is to be enjoyable and popularity is as good a measure of group enjoyment as any, you could then argue that a "better designed" game which fewer people prefer is arguably "over designed" compared to the simpler and more popular game. Ergo one could argue that popularity is a perfectly good measure of how well designed a game is. Personally what draws me to 2048 is that it required just the right amount of thinking. It doesn't stimulate me so I can play it fatigued, but equally it doesn't bore me. And it is just the right level of difficulty where I can regularly beat it but equally I cannot take winning as an assumption so I still have to try to beat it. Going back to your Flappy Birds example, that was hard as hell but the mechanics were really really easy to learn and you were only competing against your own personal best (there's no finish goal, no boss, just an infinite number of pipes to navigate through). That means as tough as the game is, it's only as hard as the individual is good at it.
- dspillett 9y ago
  > popularity is as good a measure of group enjoyment Popularity can depend on a large number of factors. One that has no (direct) effect on quality is cost: threes wasn't free initially, 2048 was, so far more people played 2048. This is why "freemium" is such a common model, trying to get the exposure/market-share benefit of being free while still pulling in income from the product or related addons/services. If you look at "popularity" of similar products of each type as measured by market share or absolute download numbers you most likely see free far outstrips freemium which in turn outstrips any product with an up-front cost.
vageli 9y ago
> When an automated script that alternates pressing up and right and left every hundreth (sic) time can beat the game, then well, that's broken. Is Threes a better game? We think so. To this day, only about 6 people in the world have ever seen a 6144 and nobody in the world has yet to “beat” Threes. But that’s what’s better to us as game designers. We worked really hard to create a simple game system with interesting complexity that you can play forever. To me, it seems the argument of the linked article basically boils down to: their game is too easy so it's bad. Does a game need a really long email chain of back and forth to show that it was well-designed?