Games can be a tremendous pull if done right (xkcd - would a web comic lie?). “Right” is subjective, and can differ substantially depending on your goals and who you are targeting. This rambling post will attempt to discuss my thoughts on planning a game.
Some maintain that people are far more vocal when unhappy – if you are extremely clever, you could probably capitalise on this with a really dire game. However, it is far more likely that a when a user doesn’t enjoy a game they will simply forget it. On the other hand if they like the game they will come back, or recommend it to a friend, or both. So above all we want our game to be fun.
How does one make a game fun? The quality of both the design and implementation is important – a brilliant design can be spoiled by poor execution, likewise a mediocre design is likely to struggle in spite of flawless execution. With a good design, implementation of most viral games should be fairly straightforward (we are professionals after all!); so while there may be some balancing and tweaking of the working product here I will focus more on the design considerations.
One such is complexity: while this will vary depending on the target demographic, typically the most successful viral games are simple. It could be the best game in the world but if your users need to read a page of text to learn how to play first then you will lose a substantial fraction of potential players (“too busy now, maybe later”), and you might struggle to regain momentum. This is not to say that the game itself must be simple, rather the way the user interacts (and probably the visual interface) should be as efficient as possible. For example, a very popular viral game from yesteryear involved whacking a penguin, and has since spawned many clones and variations. Interaction is very simple – click the mouse (some versions incorporate holding the mouse or dragging to supply power or angle, but nothing overtly complex.
Fine and good, but what about ones where more complexity is required? Physics puzzles seem to be becoming more popular such as this one. Again, I am a professional so can resist the lure of mindlessly playing games for fun. However, I did spend some time on this one, purely for research purposes you understand. Many, many hours of research. It’s not rocket science, but it is certainly more complicated than the previous example. And yet, interaction is just clicking, and later 3 or 4 keys. This apparent simplicity helps make it more fun.
Another difference between these two examples that might be very obvious is length. This is heavily dictated by the structure and style of your game. In the case of the former, it seems designed to be as simple and quick to restart as possible. This makes it very easy to retry, and a game that encourages a “one-more-go” mentality is more likely to be passed on to friends (a little more on that later).
The latter example (while definitely providing a large amount of scope for retrying levels) offered, for me at least, more of a “what’s next” drive to replay. Multiple levels are more costly, but are a classic and easy way of providing variety in a game where the basic mechanic may itself bear multiple retries but not in an unchanged form. To clarify - in magic pen, once you have completed a level and achieved the best score there is little to entice you to replay that level; however the other levels mean the game still has more to offer.
That last sentence touches on another consideration – score, and by implication, competition. Competition is a great way to encourage not only replay, but sharing of a game. I first heard of the penguin game from someone who was bragging about the distance they were able to propel the unlucky vertebrate. Likewise, magic pen was initially a race to later levels, and then a painstaking attempt to use fewer shapes than everyone else. Competition significantly extended the lifespan of both games, as well as being a primary motivator in their distribution. Scoreboards or other similar means of tracking progress help this enormously.
In considering this, it is also fairly important that one considers the difficulty of the game. Something that is too difficult will alienate players, while something that is too easy will be quickly discarded. This is one of the areas that is most susceptible to tweaking late in the development process, and can be hard to get exactly right. Ideally, a game will be easy to pick up, but more difficult to master – repeated play shows steady progress, but there is always room for improvement in all but the most hardcore.
This might not be true in all cases – I have written a game (no longer online), completion of which allowed the player to enter a competition. In this case, completion provided a sense of achievement but had the additional draw of a possible prize. Here, it seemed best to scale down the difficulty (in part owing to the older demographic targeted), which resulted in the game being shared by people proud of their accomplishment, but also wanting to inform friends and colleagues of the competition.
If people are to share your game, for whatever reason, you want it to be instantly recognisable. Clones of games can rival the original if they are imbued with sufficient personality (and a suitable legal distinction, of course). Be this the style or humour, it is important that it is distinct and recognisable in a medium where there is no shortage of entertainment.
There is much to consider in creating a viral game, and consequently a lot of room to differentiate between a good and a great game. So, while wooshy noises are all well and good, it is important that thought goes into the game to get the core mechanics and design right. A truly great game will have many people playing it, but very few aware of the work it required.
Nick
Some maintain that people are far more vocal when unhappy – if you are extremely clever, you could probably capitalise on this with a really dire game. However, it is far more likely that a when a user doesn’t enjoy a game they will simply forget it. On the other hand if they like the game they will come back, or recommend it to a friend, or both. So above all we want our game to be fun.
How does one make a game fun? The quality of both the design and implementation is important – a brilliant design can be spoiled by poor execution, likewise a mediocre design is likely to struggle in spite of flawless execution. With a good design, implementation of most viral games should be fairly straightforward (we are professionals after all!); so while there may be some balancing and tweaking of the working product here I will focus more on the design considerations.
One such is complexity: while this will vary depending on the target demographic, typically the most successful viral games are simple. It could be the best game in the world but if your users need to read a page of text to learn how to play first then you will lose a substantial fraction of potential players (“too busy now, maybe later”), and you might struggle to regain momentum. This is not to say that the game itself must be simple, rather the way the user interacts (and probably the visual interface) should be as efficient as possible. For example, a very popular viral game from yesteryear involved whacking a penguin, and has since spawned many clones and variations. Interaction is very simple – click the mouse (some versions incorporate holding the mouse or dragging to supply power or angle, but nothing overtly complex.
Fine and good, but what about ones where more complexity is required? Physics puzzles seem to be becoming more popular such as this one. Again, I am a professional so can resist the lure of mindlessly playing games for fun. However, I did spend some time on this one, purely for research purposes you understand. Many, many hours of research. It’s not rocket science, but it is certainly more complicated than the previous example. And yet, interaction is just clicking, and later 3 or 4 keys. This apparent simplicity helps make it more fun.
Another difference between these two examples that might be very obvious is length. This is heavily dictated by the structure and style of your game. In the case of the former, it seems designed to be as simple and quick to restart as possible. This makes it very easy to retry, and a game that encourages a “one-more-go” mentality is more likely to be passed on to friends (a little more on that later).
The latter example (while definitely providing a large amount of scope for retrying levels) offered, for me at least, more of a “what’s next” drive to replay. Multiple levels are more costly, but are a classic and easy way of providing variety in a game where the basic mechanic may itself bear multiple retries but not in an unchanged form. To clarify - in magic pen, once you have completed a level and achieved the best score there is little to entice you to replay that level; however the other levels mean the game still has more to offer.
That last sentence touches on another consideration – score, and by implication, competition. Competition is a great way to encourage not only replay, but sharing of a game. I first heard of the penguin game from someone who was bragging about the distance they were able to propel the unlucky vertebrate. Likewise, magic pen was initially a race to later levels, and then a painstaking attempt to use fewer shapes than everyone else. Competition significantly extended the lifespan of both games, as well as being a primary motivator in their distribution. Scoreboards or other similar means of tracking progress help this enormously.
In considering this, it is also fairly important that one considers the difficulty of the game. Something that is too difficult will alienate players, while something that is too easy will be quickly discarded. This is one of the areas that is most susceptible to tweaking late in the development process, and can be hard to get exactly right. Ideally, a game will be easy to pick up, but more difficult to master – repeated play shows steady progress, but there is always room for improvement in all but the most hardcore.
This might not be true in all cases – I have written a game (no longer online), completion of which allowed the player to enter a competition. In this case, completion provided a sense of achievement but had the additional draw of a possible prize. Here, it seemed best to scale down the difficulty (in part owing to the older demographic targeted), which resulted in the game being shared by people proud of their accomplishment, but also wanting to inform friends and colleagues of the competition.
If people are to share your game, for whatever reason, you want it to be instantly recognisable. Clones of games can rival the original if they are imbued with sufficient personality (and a suitable legal distinction, of course). Be this the style or humour, it is important that it is distinct and recognisable in a medium where there is no shortage of entertainment.
There is much to consider in creating a viral game, and consequently a lot of room to differentiate between a good and a great game. So, while wooshy noises are all well and good, it is important that thought goes into the game to get the core mechanics and design right. A truly great game will have many people playing it, but very few aware of the work it required.
Nick
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