If there is one single thing that I think the vast majority of game designers have forgotten, and which is in fact the single most critical thing for them to never, ever forget...
It's that video games are, above ALL else, supposed to be FUN.
I lie sort of in the middle ground among gamers. I don't care for fast-twitch, ridiculously competitive PvP games, in which I'll get absolutely trounced by some kid with faster reflexes or more willingness to exploit a game's weaknesses than me.
I also get bored easily with "casual" games in which my skill and thought processes don't matter. What I'm looking for is something in between. A game that's challenging enough to keep me interested, and yet makes me feel smart and powerful and capable at the same time.
As has been referenced before on this forum, if I just wanted a challenge (re: to get my ass handed to me time and time and time again), I have a free chess program that came with my operating system, that can quite thoroughly trounce me, any time I feel like it. (Hint: the number of times I've felt like it, in my entire life: Zero)
I understand that there are people out there who enjoy a crushingly difficult challenge. I'm not one of them. Neither are what I feel to be the vast majority of gamers.
What I want is a challenge that I can solve through a variety of means. I should be able to go out into the galaxy, and succeed through exploration, through research, through advanced combat tactics, or a number of other means. Able... but not guaranteed. If I screw up, I'd love to get punished for it -- but be able to recover.
My problem comes with games in which I didn't screw up, but still got thrashed. That isn't fun for me. It may be realistic, but if I wanted realism to come first, I'd just go live real life, instead of being a gamer. I play games to feel powerful, not helpless. And I play games the most, when I have a variety of options at my disposal. That's where real replay value comes in. Just because you procedurally generate a galaxy doesn't make it replayable, if in each game, you must do exactly the same things, in exactly the same order, or be crushed, such as frantic early land grab at the expense of all else, like in Endless Space.
To me, being restricted to a single viable strategy like that, is the opposite of fun. If I have to play just like the AI does, or get steamrolled by said AI, then I'm just going to move on. I may as well just -be- another AI at that point. I'm not, and I'm not interested in being one.
This game, though I haven't tried it yet (I did buy it, but it's still downloading), seems promising. I just wanted to put out there that the single most important thing that any video game can do... is be fun.
Not graphics, not AI, not balance, not anything else anyone can tell you.
Fun.
Everything else, everything else, must be done in service to that single ultimate goal.
The single most important thing...
Re: The single most important thing...
FUN yes, it has to be that for all the players. But that fun can be in a number of different ways and will always
point in one direction, "Let the Player make his own Decisions" Let him/her pick their own path to achieve the
4X. Let them pick the -UNKNOWN- that they want to explore. This way they reap the rewards or failure alone....
point in one direction, "Let the Player make his own Decisions" Let him/her pick their own path to achieve the
4X. Let them pick the -UNKNOWN- that they want to explore. This way they reap the rewards or failure alone....