What makes a "good" game?

What makes a good game?

This question might be as hard to answer as "Define Fun?". Yes, it's very easy to give examples of good games -- consider Halo and Magic: The Gathering, to name two easy examples. But without working up much of a sweat I'm sure I could find people who hate either or both of these examples.

...clearly we're not talking about an exact science.

Examples of good or fun games are out there but they don't really answer the question. Two video game titles I produced were turned down by other equally qualified Producers as being junk, or unsolvable. They didn't see the "fun" or how either game would be a big seller. They were dead wrong: one sold 750,000 copies and the other won Game of the Year from two magazines. So clearly we're not talking about an exact science.

Often I have been part of "submission evaluation". This means I get to look at all the crazy stuff sent in to publishers. Most of the stuff is silly, non-publishable ramblings that always end with "my friends think this is great".

My two best examples of this are "SludgeMaster" and "Chase". In SludgeMaster, presented to Broderbund, you are the controller of a sewage treatment plant. Your job is to channel the "sludge" through the correct pipes so that it would be treated and turned into drinkable water. This was a product that cried out for "scratch & sniff", but it was not to be.

The second example is more typical. This was a two page submission to SEGA from a father and son. It read in part: "The player gets in a car, the Genesis controlled car takes off and the player car chases it". I can't exactly remember how they stretched that to two pages, but they did.

From every bad idea, there can come a great idea.

Both companies' policy at the time was to not respond to submissions that were not going to be produced. I think that's always the wrong policy. From every bad idea, there can come a great idea.

Recently I had a contract with a board game company to produce a game using their established format. I created a game based on fears or nightmares. Basically, I interviewed about 50 people and took notes on what scares them. Although they don't bother me some people are very scared of clowns, and spiders give me the willies, so both of these concepts were incorporated into the game.

I went on vacation for a week and when I came back another designer had added a card: "The Police officer grabs the young black man in a headlock and holds his Glock to the young man's head". I'm not sure how this designer felt this was a "common fear". Although the idea of some other designer adding needless violence to one of my games IS one of my nightmares, I really don't think the general public has this fear.

The designer said to me, as a way of defending his card: "There's violence everywhere". Which implies that violence equals fun, and adding this card would make the game more fun. Which leads to the sub question of our topic: "Why do people play games?"

I believe people play games to get away from the humdrum, and violence, of real life. That doesn't mean my games aren't violent -- they just don't depict violence the way you see it in the news. We can't get away from violence, but we can defocus it so that violence isn't the main goal. Let's remember that in Magic: The Gathering the goal is to kill the other wizard by lowering his life points from 20 to 0. In most D&D combat situations, the NPCs die, sometimes horribly.

So an acceptable amount of violence, depicted in a correct manner, does not take away from a game, but it doesn't automatically make it good, fun game to play. There are plenty of examples of good games where there is no violence at all. Settlers of Catan is great example; there are armies, but no war is required to win.

...part of what makes a game "good" is personal preference.

I think we can say that part of what makes a game "good" is personal preference. But really, only part. Most people have a genre that they just don't like, for whatever reason. I think we could go so far as to say that a larger percentage of people who play games can determine that a game is "bad," than will agree a game is "good".

After 25 years of making games I can play a game, video or paper, and know if it's a fun game within a few minutes. Some people must play the entire game to know for sure. I think it's like people who read movie script submissions at the major studios -- the script has to hook them in the first 3 minutes. Games are the same way for me: I'll give you 3 minutes, but if I'm not motivated to keep playing, I move on.

Games don't have to have a lot of "fiddly bits", as one designer puts it, to be good. They do need to have qualities that make sense. If in D&D I am in a sword battle and the NPC pulls out a BFG Rocket Launcher, I think there's a leap in "sense" that I'm not willing to make. Every time you ask your audience to suspend their belief system, you risk losing the game players who forked over their hard earned cash. The more their belief system is stretched, the more likely it is to snap, and then you have a game few will play.

As a game designer, we can't look at all the negatives as a method towards deciding if our game is "good". If we were to take that path, we'd end up with the melba toast of games, a game that doesn't offend us, but won't excite us much either. As a matter of fact, we can accept a few negatives, if the positive side outweighs it.

To answer the question, then, is to really not answer it. Given time we can more easily define what makes a bad game, but what is left over isn't necessarily a good game. Game design is not like cutting fat from a steak, it's about redefining what a steak is.

I'd like to challenge you to play your favorite games, try a couple of new ones, and then write me and tell me what you found to be fat, and what you found to be steak in each game.

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How do you develop a "winning" strategy?

We've all played in games where someone playing has his or her own read on the rules. I can think of at least two good examples (or rather famous stories) about what is allowed and what is just a misunderstanding of the rules.

The first example is the killing of Lord British in Ultima Online. A theretofore unknown bug was exploited to make a cool event not so cool. Unfortunately there are people out there who want attention so badly they'll run the "fun" for everyone else just to get it.

The second example is from Richard Garfield, and the "winning" Magic card. We've all read the story of the text: "Opponent loses next turn". Read one way and it is the most powerful card in Magic, read it the way it was intended and the card is an also ran.

When developing a strategy for tournaments, online play, or just your friends, there is a fine line between exploring whether your strategy is legal and showing your complete strategy to your future opponents.

Sometimes the rules don't help you. In my own card game, Crown of the Emperor, the rules allow for a player to "attack a planet", but don't discuss what happens when the planet loses. This is addressed in the FAQ's, but until it was, there could have been a complete strategy designed around blowing up planets that wouldn't be allowed.

Rules are always up to interpretation, no matter the game. With card games it's even moreso due to the limited space on the card to detail the rules. As proof of this acceptance of interpretation I offer the judges at any Magic tournament. Becoming a judge requires a number of tests, each one requiring a high standard of knowledge about the game. During tournaments their job is to adjudicate any rules conflict.

So we know rules can be misinterpreted, but how does one ensure that this ultra cool sneaky never done before strategy isn't breaking the rules? Beyond knowing the rules of the game very well, look at the spirit of the rules. Does it make sense that the robot character you are playing can fly? If the answer is no, then look for another strategy.

A winning strategy is not always the unexpected. Often while playing a game I can look at my opponent's situation and determine that I cannot win. Although it's possible to do the opposite, I think it's rude to suggest to anyone that they should just give up the game because they have no hope.

The first step to developing any strategy is to read the rules, and I mean READ them. This will help you understand the most obvious strategy. If it is the most obvious you must have a plan to defeat it, or you are sure to lose. I was playing a video game once and I found out that I could win just by hitting my "strike" button faster than my opponents. Not a great strategy and their plan was just to wait until I got tired. It worked, eventually.

But defeating the most obvious strategy is not the path to victory; it's more a path to stalemate. Ask yourself: "Why does this always defeat the most obvious attack strategy?" Now break down what you need at a MINIMUM to always KNOW you can defeat the most obvious strategy. The remainder is what you have to play around with. Is it ships? Is it cards? Is it figures? It must be some kind of game resource. Put all the remaining pieces aside in their own pool. This is the pool from which you will develop the winning strategy.

A good strategy is not dependant on your opponent not understanding the rules. It often happens at pre-release tournaments where neither party fully understands the rules but they do their best to muddle through. This is nothing to depend on.

Given that most games have some limited resource -- be it in pieces, mana, or life points -- the trick is to find the middle ground between what you require to perform your strategy and what you need to give up.

Lets say that for this discussion the resource we're talking about is build points. Is it better to buy the big giant, or is it better to buy a hundred tiny giants? You want your opponent to be forced to break his strategy. So let's go back to the most common strategy and decide which will break it up faster: one big unit, or 100 tiny units. Will the 100 tiny units still allow you to put your strategy to work, or does it require one big unit? You should be working only with the resources that are left over from your strategy. Keep to that rule and you'll feel more comfortable developing that winning attack type strategy.

If you have a well thought out plan, chances are your opponent does too. The most common strategy is usually the most obvious. Remember that it's called the "most common" because most people will use it! Use that against them. If that common strategy requires that the player have water resources, carry the battle to the sector of the world that has no water. Also, design your attack requiring no water resources. This will give you an advantage while frustrating the most common strategy.

This brings up a good point, the map board. Not all games have maps that can be manipulated to your advantage, but some do. Examine this map closely. Are there any bottle necks or areas that could be used to your advantage given the units you have already purchased? Are there areas you MUST avoid? This will have a huge affect on your design of your strategy.

Games that are based on some event in history add an element of strategy. In the case of an American Civil War game, I think it's a good bet to say that if you're playing the South, you'll need a really good strategy to win. As a matter of fact, you'll need to pull off a minor miracle. That being said, there are tons of Civil War games out there where either side can win. Those games require both players to think outside of the actual events and be creative.

While there is no single method to develop a winning strategy for all games, I have found that using combinations that have not been used before to be a good starting point. Most people don't look for a Black/White deck in Magic, as an example. Putting good and evil characters together can take people out of their comfort zone and force them into situations they have not thought about.

We all know what happens when we know exactly what the other player is going to do next: they lose. It doesn't matter what game we're talking about. Your winning strategy doesn't have to bend the rules, or depend on luck -- it needs to be somehow out of the ordinary. Trying the unexpected from the beginning can help you develop the strategy that takes you to the top. Start with the basics of knowing the rules, the battlefield and what is "common". Strive for the uncommon and there you will find gold.

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