Inventory of bad video games

Everyone loves great work. But why have so many bad games in the gaming industry after decades of development? When I was teaching a game design course, I was forcing students to experience bad games and realized in the middle what should not be done in project production . As a result, we dig out the blame for the seven game design fretting players.

1. Easy to use control methods

inaccessible controls (from conversations.nokia.com)

When it comes to meeting player control characters, it's just a straight line to the ease of moving around and being frustrated by hard-to-use controls.

This is also the key reason why many users do not treat video games as hobbies. In football games, players need to hold 'L1 + B' in order to take a close shot, which means that the player needs to turn their fingers 360 degrees.

Lack of tutorials or poorly designed tutorials

Pong, the first video game in history, managed to put the core idea in a clear instruction: 'Avoid missing the highball'. There are very few simple games in the industry today, which means developers should not assume that players will immediately master the basics of the game.

After entering the tutorial, the game will teach players the core concept of play. The tutorial design requires developers to take a step back and start from the point of view of a player who has not been in contact with the game for months or years. But such a tutorial does not appeal to players, it is still a challenge in game design.

tutorial (from conversations.nokia.com)

3 difficulty curve increase is too large

A masterpiece according to the player's proficiency gradually improve the challenge of difficulty, thus ensuring the fun of the game. However, developers can easily overlook the way that average players deal with challenges, causing the difficulty of the game to increase rapidly. As a result, the game will only frustrate or scare players and force them to give up.

4. Lack of feedback

The point of the interactive mode is that the player's actions get feedback in the simple input and output looping mechanism. Therefore, feedback on player actions is the key to retaining them, and if the game fails to do that, it loses interest.

Video games should at least be responsive to player actions because the basic system in which they were created should have been able to provide quick feedback. This is why they are called video games. If in "Bejeweled," when you match but did not show a pleasing picture, the game will be interesting?

5. The best strategy to win

Some of the wonders of Angry Birds are the simulated physical mechanisms that birdies, pigs, and building blocks act together in a predictable and unpredictable way. If the bird's physical movement is: whenever you increase the power of slingshot, it will achieve the best results (immediately clear the level). This is the best strategy, but it can not make interesting work.

6. Lack of meaningful options

Civilization game designer Sid Meier once defined the game as "a series of interesting options." His work undoubtedly reflects this idea.

However, if the game presents only superficially different options, it must be bad. If you can not rotate the building blocks in Tetris, that means less opportunity to optimize the result and less interesting games.

7. No reward and unclear goals

rewards (from conversations.nokia.com)

When I devote myself wholeheartedly to defeating my friends or completing levels, this is basically a goal-driven activity. Some of the happiness stems from efforts toward established goals, such as 'Avoid missing highballs' and 'Save the Princess'.

In addition, the goal of a good work is obviously a clear one, and its struggling process is full of joy. This is not uncommon in everyday life; for example, we can not find a romantic atmosphere from rubbish. If the game does not set a clear goal, it will be like a mess.