Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about what hooks me on any given game. I try to watch myself as I play so I can note the times I’m really excited about what I’m doing, and how I got to that point. I feel if I could get good at recognizing what the core reward loop is in any given game, I could be better at designing my own games.
What I’d be very interested to read is what you guys feel is the main thing compelling you onward in a particular game you like. So name a game you like, and describe exactly what you think the main reward or design loop is.
As an addition question: Do you guys think this is even a useful exercise?
I’ll start it off with a game I think I’ve figured out why I like it: Minecraft in survival mode. This game has a lot of layers to it and people play differently. But for me, after really thinking about, I came to the conclusion that everything I do in Minecraft is instrumental to decking out my crib. I want to make my house not only beautiful, but practical. I want to build a huge mineshaft strait down from it to make mining convenient. Why do I want to mine? To get materials to further deck out my crib. Why make armor? To go monster hunting. Why go monster hunting? To get more stuff to deck out my crib! Why go to the nether? Same thing. Sometimes there are layers of goals, but in the end it all comes back to my house.
Your motivation is caused by something I have always thought to be a core reason for computer / video games to exist… to EXPRESS YOURSELF by INTERACTING WITH the game world. Basically you are “making your mark” on the world. That small piece has the most meaning to you because it is of your own design and choices.
We can see this behavior occur in many different games in different ways depending on how much freedom the game provides to “do your own thing”. I once watched my son creating piles of weapons around town in Skyrim. He did it for a long time. I asked “what are you doing?” and he said “I’m making MY stashes.” Because the stashes were placed where he wanted them to be located and contained only those items he wanted in each particular stash they were EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to him.
That’s the process of “the grind”… if you could get inside their minds you would find other motivators… “man I want that gold armor of Lightning!”, “my character is gonna look so cool once I get that full set of gear!”. Even the process of leveling is a way for them to “make their mark” on the world. They want to become a more powerful force within the game world. They want to make an impact.
@RJ-MacReady 's post exemplifies the central reward mechanic (hey, did I just invent a useful term?) of many games, which is a development curve. To prove that this is enough on itself to motivate many players, look at pretty much any clicker game (see other thread in this forum!), which are built entirely around a development curve. Your numbers (whether it’s HP, XP, cookies per second, whatever) get bigger, and you feel like you’ve done something useful with your time. That’s rewarding in itself.
However, I think the other posts (especially @djweinbaum’s above) are also on the mark. When I play MC, it’s with the same motivation: I want to make my own place that’s both cool and functional. I get bored with MC when my options for doing that start to feel too limited. I did much the same in Oblivion: I bought myself a house, and decked it out, but got frustrated when I couldn’t move the furniture around or otherwise redecorate much.
This “making your own space” reward mechanic probably crops up in a lot of other places, too. In NetHack, I used to enjoy cleaning out parts of the dungeon, and even digging shortcuts, partly because that was useful but mainly because I felt like I was improving the world. In SimCity, you start with an empty field and eventually build YourTown, a thriving metropolis. In god games, you build a whole civilization of worshipers.
Hey, that one maybe leads to the underlying reward of both of these, which is ego-boosting. Look what I made! I’m awesome! And I have the cool crib/clean dungeon/city/legions of worshipers to prove it!
It’s kind of like, why do I put a wizard hat on? To show the world that I’m a smarty pants. I’m trying to define myself. To play is to be. So when people play these games, they are trying to exist within that context. In your terms, make a mark on the world. Although, some people prefer to hide and sneak away in a little corner and just observe. You play for enjoyment, you try to make your mark on the world. Some people, like me, usually play alone and play for curiosity more than anything. Minecraft ran out of secrets for me to find, so I’m over it.
The point is that people keep playing, though. That feedback loops just keeps churning out little niblets of “good job!” and “oh, that wasn’t a smart move” and people just keep on tapping/clicking.
You guys are revealing a lot about how you play, and in turn a lot about who you are. Games should allow different people to play their own way, though.
Absolutely. One of the goals for my simple platform game is to have different options for progressing. The easy way would be to simply make it so the player just kills every enemy. That is the easy way out that most games take. I want that as an option but also allow players to rely on stealth and agility or puzzles to proceed without ever needing to kill an enemy. Both ways would be scored in the end. Enemies killed and Enemies Remaining. Of course, with different terminology.
I find this interesting, though, as there’s genres that do not account for personal taste.
JRPGs and Visual Novels are a great example - you play a predefined character, with a ‘severely’ limited set of predefined options. Maybe you’re playing Final Fantasy VII, but don’t want spiky yellow hair and a sword so big it can be counted as overcompensation. If so, you’re plumb out of luck. Cloud is a slim, white, spiky-haired guy with an oversized sword roaming Gaia to stop Sephiroth. There is no deviation, you play the novel.
Yet, people find this fun. If you can’t personalize stuff to the extent you just said, why is FFVII regarded as the classic that people see it as?
Some people just like pre-packaged, very linear experiences.
I tend to gravitate toward games that allow me to play how I want to, depending on my mood (Deus Ex and Fallout 3 come to mind), but I do like some linear games too. I mean, I enjoyed the Uncharted series, which are essentially long hallways with cut scenes scattered throughout.
One advantage of linear games is that they allow for more traditional storytelling, so for players that like that, it can be a plus. Also, everyone gets a very similar experience, which means the developer can more finely tune the gameplay and pacing of the story. Of course, the downside is that everyone gets a very similar experience.
In Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, if you alerted each enemy but also killed them you could pass any stage. But–it would rate you as a “Thug”. If you could stealth kill all the enemies quickly, you would be called “Grand Master”.
I liked being a ninja thug. Sometimes I would jump off a roof and land on someone while slashing just to lulz.
Hmm. Let’s think about that for a minute. I never said personalize, that was you just now. And, you can play FFVII different ways if you want. It’s a very limited genre to be sure, JRPG’s in general, but you always have the option to power level early and breeze thru the game or just play and level only as needed. You can slowly read all the lines of story and you can even role play a little bit, it all depends on how emotionally involved you are willing to become. Stories have main characters, though, and a story is what drives a JRPG.
As for why its a classic, it’s got great music, great graphics, great sound effects and it delivers an experience that is in line with what most people would want from a game like that. It set the bar for turn-based epic RPG’s in the 21st century.
Personally, my favorite character was Barrett. “Aint no gettin’ offa this train we on!!!”
Remember that a role playing game is best when played as though you are one of the characters in the game… a lot of people think it’s all about beating the game and so all of this story stuff just gets in their way, and they wish they could skip all these annoying cut scenes…
I don’t think you quite understand that in a game like FFVII, pacing is not a major concern. Perhaps you don’t recall some of the longer story sequences, the unskippable ones without battles. The point of a game like FFVII is to allow you to have enough control over the character to express yourself within the context of that world, you are making some of the choices while other choices are outside of your control. Kind of like… oh I don’t know… life.
Cloud Strife: No one lives in the slums because they want to. It’s like this train. It can only go where the tracks take it.
Never played FFVII, so I have no context on that title specifically. You’re right though, what I was rambling about in term of linear vs. freeform doesn’t have that much to do with customizing one’s toon(s). I can see pros and cons to that. The RPG’s where you can create any sort of hideous/crazy character can be fun, but also a bit out there.
In The Witcher, you play a very specific character (from a novel) and the game maintains that character’s look and feel throughout, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A game can still offer meaningful choices and be a classic game without the detail of having visual customization options.
League of Legends is a deep pursuit of mastery. And, my life is complicated enough, that I don’t always need or even want that. Sometimes, I want simple success, where time invested will make me happy, like reading a book. And the simplest example of that are Clicker/Incremental games. Click, click, … upgrade, … click, upgrade, … Nicole Lazarro called this ‘Serious Fun’. We’re talking about that in the Design of Clicker Games thread.
This is all very interesting stuff for me to read. @GarBenjamin I never thought about it that way with “making your mark” on the world. That’s a very interesting story about your son. I like that way of looking at it.
That’s the exact moment I get bored in MC as well.
@AndrewGrayGames I think ‘make your own way’ is one particular type of reward loop that not all games use. For instance Mario (the platformer) is definitely a “master this challenge” sort of game. I find there to be no role playing whatsoever. In the case of FF I think the only ‘make your own way’ there is to be found is in the combat strategy and gear/skill choices.
I actually find it fairly difficult to pin down exactly what I like about a game. I feel like I have to watch myself in the moment as I play, which can be difficult when I’m just trying to enjoy the experience.
