http://stevencolling.de/downloads/public/gdimpact.pdf

@Gurglor: Is that the tunnel you talking about? And “Game Mechanics” the level you want to discuss?

@Puzzlem00n: “Player and Game Configuration” would be the level you talking about.

And “Player’s Emotional Experience” would be level I stucked (:P).

Although, I suppose that’s a bit off topic from what I was talking about in my first comment, which I’m just realizing. I guess that layer is more like fun on a psychological level. They say what is fun is generally related to solving problems, a mental adaptation of the human mind to become more intelligent. They also say things like feedback alleviate the frustration of solving them. How do these games incorporate that?

So yeah, both those paragraphs are what I find interesting points.

I was sort of exploring the question of why people thought the “best” games were so fun or memorable. To answer that we’d probably have to enumerate the different layers that make up the gaming experience. Some of that is the psychological or “emotional” factor you were talking about. Why do we play? What are we getting out of our game time that makes us want more?

What makes a game fun? The level of competition? Sometimes. The escape of fantasy? Sometimes. The thrill of shock and horror? Sometimes. But not every game as about every one of these factors. You can approach the subject from any of these angles (and more), so I suppose people are naturally going to look at it from different angles. Maybe that in itself is why there’s such a wide spectrum of interesting games available.

Fun is a very strange word used in games. Amnesia: The Dark Descent ist neither funny (humour) nor fun in terms of „hey, get shocked by a game and feel real fear was fun“.

Whatever, term confusion is an important part in theoretical discussions, sadly ^^.

Your novel example is a good one. If a game tries to be different things at once, it will be indefinit, forcing the player to do stupid things while obstructing him to get the aspired gaming (emotional/fun) experience he wanted…

Do we have a superordinate question which we discuss here?

I’d say we should go for fun and interesting combinations in the experience we create, but trying to design a game that runs the entire gamut is probably stretching things a little thin. Like trying to write a novel that covers half a dozen genres. You’ll probably wind up combining the worst of what you want to include instead of the best, and at that point you’ve missed the ‘epic’ design you were probably going for and wound up in ‘satire’ territory at best.

In common game design articles/books emotional involvement is stated as an important part of a good game, but I think there is a better differentiation needed: Many people reduce emotional experience on affective basics like humor, fear, sorrow, curiosity or just suspense. But in my opinion, people want to have (as I said above) very specific feelings.
And yeah, that would be a nice ludum dare theme : D

@Gurglor:

„if we have a good idea of what we want or need when we go into them.“. Absolutely right. A formal method would be nice, which enables the use of creativity in an effective manner: emotional pattern engineering to get the very (like Puzzlem00n said) important emotions into the game.

The use of Game Design Patterns already exists:
http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Design-Development-Series-Charles/dp/1584503548/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334063737&sr=8-1
(270 dollar… lol? is this a handwritten book?)

I think I’ll try a formal-like method in the coming ludum dare…

Your point of emotional desires (satisfaction of particular emotional experience) and getting bored of them makes sense. Should a game have multiple different emotional experiences so players don’t get bored? Does the amount of emotional experiences discriminates casual and „hobby“ games (games used as a hobby, don’t want to use the term hardcore)?

Emotional patterns have a lot to do with my enjoyment of a game. I’d say that’s why I only play a particular kind of game if I’m “in the mood for it”. What does being “in the mood” for a game mean? I’m looking for a certain kind of experience, either to match the way I’m feeling now or else repeat whatever feelings a particular game evokes. In my case I think it’s a combination of that.

When a game no longer compliments my “mood”, then I get bored with it and find something else to do or play. Why? I want a different emotional experience now.

I am a fan of what you’re doing here, though, and it’s nice to see some quality observations.

Speaking of which… emotions… Good idea for a theme suggestion. I’ll do that now.

1. What do you see?
2. How it is done?
3. Why did the artist do it and why on this way?

You use this findings in the context of analysis and syntheses: you analyse patterns and symbols to synthesize it in your own work. You learn how to communicate your statements.

Very brief example:
Casper David Friedrich, Mönch am Meer
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Caspar_David_Friedrich_029.jpg

What do you see? Little Monk somewhere on the ground (not in the middle), big sea and a very big sky. Unsaturated colors, dark… How it is done? Using big areas and high area contrast between monk and his environment. Why? Interpretation: Meaninglessness of human being respective nature and existence. Which (simple) pattern I gained from this? Using an area contrast to determine someone’s value.

Adapting this on game design, the steps would be:

1. What do you see, hear and control? (Features?)
2. How it is done? (Mechanics?)
3. Why did the game designer do it and why on this way
Why enjoy people fun on this way?

To get on the fuel example in River Raid:

What I see here respective fuel:
- you can shoot it (get points!)
- there are highscores
- you can avoid it
- nothing happens if so
- you can use it as barrier (not sure if, I didn’t play the game )
- opponents try to shot you down
- you can fill up your fuel
- your fuel empties and you will die if this happens

How it is done?
The fuel is presented to you just for a period of time.
- you can shoot it (get points!)
- you can boot a shot and it flies into the fuel
- you can avoid it
- you can fly away from it
- you can use it as barrier (not sure if, I didn’t play the game )
- you can fly to it
- you can fill up your fuel
- you can fly into it

Why?
The designer uses the short period of time to threaten the player to make a tactical decision in time. A very important decision, because you get shot down if you don’t use it as a barrier or you run out of fuel. If the player takes the highscore as a main goal, he will not get a high one if he ignores shooting at the fuel barrels. The fourth decision is to do nothing with it.
The threaten to make a fast decision results in a thrill because thinking about these decisions work parallel to fighting the enemies. Thrill equals fun?

My personal way to think about fun in games is an emotional way. Every game has emotional patterns, very specific ones. And if you like a game and play it again and again, thinking at night about some nice tactics, you just want to satisfy an emotional drive derived from such a emotional pattern.

The emotional patterns for me sounds like achievements… in the fuel example they are „fast decision maker“, „tactical overview“, „risk manager“ (translate fuel to points) and some more.

Another good example of emotional satisfaction in games (which result in gaming fun) is the following:
In Battlefield 3 I often fly jet together with a friend. If he gets haunted by an enemy jet, he trys to break out (difficult task…). But then I come and shot down the enemy jet. The emotional experience is something like „Damn, I saved your ass!“ or „Brotherhood“. This motive is placed very often in films, where companion enters the room and shots down the main character’s threat.

What’s your opinion of this? Are there some emotional patterns you enjoy in current or in old (Atari) games? Do you think analysis/synthesis, What/How/Why or emotional patterns are a good way to improve game design?

Or to put it a different way, ‘why’ is a lot more abstract than ‘what’. Since we need to think about both, I simply started with the concrete because it’s easier for people to see that. Then you jump out into the abstractions of ‘why’.

In other words, I think looking at the ‘what’ gives better context for exploring the ‘why’. I could be mistaken, but that’s pretty much my thinking on it anyway.

Besides all that, the deeper I go, the bigger my wall of text is likely to get. I suspect my fellow enthusiasts will only stay interested enough to read for so many paragraphs, ya know?

Two weeks before the competition starts, blogposts have a life cycle less than a day ^^.