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Please elaborate. A well-executed game can be fun, when a poorly-executed version of the same idea is not. But if execution is everything, how can you experim

Please elaborate. A well-executed game can be fun, when a poorly-executed version of the same idea is not. But if execution is everything, how can you experiment to test the hypothesis without making the whole thing?

jncfhnb 3y ago
Execution is not everything. A well executed concept of a bad vision is still not great. People love to pretend that game dev is just a matter of prototyping to find a fun mechanic, and while that can be true for a few things (mostly niche movement), it’s generally not true of most games. It’s important to identify where the player consciousness is within a game. Binding of Isaac, to pick something somewhat random. It probably wouldn’t be that fun doing random rooms to prototype. It probably wouldn’t be fun doing random items. It has to be a whole sequence of runs before you get the feeling that it works.
Madmallard 3y ago
This is the point of prototyping. You implement important game mechanics and interactions with just enough fidelity for it to be believable. If it’s fun, you’re on the right track.
- hyperthesis 3y ago
  So, important game mechanics and interactions, not the entire game. If it's fun even without full-fidelity, it's fun. But if it's not fun, it might just be the lack of fidelity - not believable enough. I guess one needs an opinion for how much fidelity is enough to know, for the specific mechanics/interactions. EDIT can always increase fidelity. Through this discussion, I realize I'm more interested in "feel" than fun as such - e.g. a sense of place, being somewhere, in a walking simulator; or the feel of guns in COD. Not a mechanic; but perhaps a kind of interaction. Not necessarily "cinematic", but probably more akin to issues in cinema than game mechanics. I suppose one can still isolate an aspect and iterate on it; but it seems fidelity is important here...
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    I don’t read their post as fidelity to realism, but to the vision of the game
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Games don't get more fun with more fidelity, minecraft and terraria are very low fidelity but still fun. Fidelity improves other aspects, but not the "fun" part. Audio feedback and visual feedback are very important for fun though, like the knocking you hear when hitting things in minecraft and blopping from picking things up, but it is better to try to make things fun without that at first since those can make just clicking around in a forum fun.
    - hyperthesis 3y ago
      What aspects does fidelity improve? Your point on a/v feedback reminds me of "cow clicker", started as a joke, creating the idle-game genre.

jncfhnb 3y ago

Execution is not everything. A well executed concept of a bad vision is still not great. People love to pretend that game dev is just a matter of prototyping to find a fun mechanic, and while that can be true for a few things (mostly niche movement), it’s generally not true of most games. It’s important to identify where the player consciousness is within a game. Binding of Isaac, to pick something somewhat random. It probably wouldn’t be that fun doing random rooms to prototype. It probably wouldn’t be fun doing random items. It has to be a whole sequence of runs before you get the feeling that it works.

Madmallard 3y ago

This is the point of prototyping. You implement important game mechanics and interactions with just enough fidelity for it to be believable. If it’s fun, you’re on the right track.

hyperthesis 3y ago
So, important game mechanics and interactions, not the entire game. If it's fun even without full-fidelity, it's fun. But if it's not fun, it might just be the lack of fidelity - not believable enough. I guess one needs an opinion for how much fidelity is enough to know, for the specific mechanics/interactions. EDIT can always increase fidelity. Through this discussion, I realize I'm more interested in "feel" than fun as such - e.g. a sense of place, being somewhere, in a walking simulator; or the feel of guns in COD. Not a mechanic; but perhaps a kind of interaction. Not necessarily "cinematic", but probably more akin to issues in cinema than game mechanics. I suppose one can still isolate an aspect and iterate on it; but it seems fidelity is important here...
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  I don’t read their post as fidelity to realism, but to the vision of the game
- Jensson 3y ago
  Games don't get more fun with more fidelity, minecraft and terraria are very low fidelity but still fun. Fidelity improves other aspects, but not the "fun" part. Audio feedback and visual feedback are very important for fun though, like the knocking you hear when hitting things in minecraft and blopping from picking things up, but it is better to try to make things fun without that at first since those can make just clicking around in a forum fun.
  - hyperthesis 3y ago
    What aspects does fidelity improve? Your point on a/v feedback reminds me of "cow clicker", started as a joke, creating the idle-game genre.