Designing A Simple Arcade Game

[Ekamu]

Hi Guys
Just for the record I'm not a new guy, I used to be Echo here, same profile picture I think, I was developing a visual novel engine then.
I decided to use Ren'py and forgot completely about that.

So right now I want to make an arcade game, something very simple like the first Bomberman on the NES or Dig Dug II.

I noticed some things about this genre, I could be wrong but from what I can see:

> You are limited to one action (or sometimes two similar actions)
> This action kills an enemy as well as yourself if used wrong

In Dig Dug you can fall through your own pits, In Bomberman you can kill yourself with your own bombs.
But you can also kill enemies.

Their is Risk and Reward and sometimes the same situation is a risk and sometimes a reward, for example in Bomberman if you blowing up a brick you might find the door. If you have not killed all the enemies then more keep spawning out of this door which is a huge risk, when you kill all enemies you need to find the door to get to the next level before the time goes out so finding the door is a sort of reward.

I think Bomberman is genius plus since I want to get used to tiled qt this sort of arcade game will work well.

Simple enough I hope.

Any experience with designing arcade games?
I want to make something as simple as bomberman and dig dug but I would like some more inspiration.

Thanks

[raidho36]

Actually, no, that's not how "fun" works. It's just has to be fun, and, unsurprisingly, you can't just calculate what's fun. So you just try things over and over until you find some combination that's fun.

[Jeeper]

Actually, no, that's not how "fun" works. It's just has to be fun, and, unsurprisingly, you can't just calculate what's fun. So you just try things over and over until you find some combination that's fun.

Behaviour psychology/science would like to have a few words with you . There are A LOT of research and other material on what makes games (and other things) fun/addictive/enjoyable.

[micha]

I like the idea of a game mechanic that is both useful and dangerous. According to some theories, learning is fun. So if you give the player an ability that is possibly harmful, then in the end he might have a lot of fun, once he mastered this ability. But still nobody can predict if an idea is fun, before you implemented at least a prototype.

[raidho36]

Behaviour psychology/science would like to have a few words with you . There are A LOT of research and other material on what makes games (and other things) fun/addictive/enjoyable.

The only problem is that perception of fun and addictivity and enjoyability is so much subjective it's entirely subjective. Depends on particular person. My mom, for example, loved Tetris to death whereas only finding solitaire anywhat enjoyable among all other games. And I love Quake and WarThunder games whereas I don't find World of Tanks and Arma games being fun to play, and I completely out of idea how people are finding Linage kind of games fun and/or addictive: I've tried WoW for a week and then just dropped it - it wasn't fun to play this game at all.

So entire concept of predicting what game people will like is exactly the same as predicting what food people will like. Because some will and some just won't. Your best shot is to avoid deal-breakers in games that make them unplayable and unenjoyable. But then again, it depends on particular game and particular persons who play it. In Contra or Unreal, one hit death makes this game fun to play, but one hit death in Worms makes it plain boring, yet there's people that still think otherwise. And of course it doesn't applies universally either: there's games like Syobon or, more notorious, I Wanna Be The Guy which deliberately make the game unfair to the player, and in these games, it makes them fun, while in most other games it just makes them unplayable.

This is why you don't calculate what's fun. You just try it over and over until you hit lucky combo. Did you know the company that made Angry Birds have made over 50 other mediocre apps before The Birds have finally made it to the top? The first Birds was just another mediocre app, with low budget and mediocre graphics and whatnot, without any expectations to raise anywhat big income, but under some wild circuimstances it got popular. They just hit lucky combo. And, oh why, remember Carmageddon game? There were another games of this kind, but none of them got as popular and famous as the first Carmageddon. Even the third in the series was considered utter junk even though it was about the same as the first two, just slight little changes turned gold into shit. They didn't hit the lucky combo with the 3rd one.

[micha]

This is why you don't calculate what's fun. You just try it over and over until you hit lucky combo. Did you know the company that made Angry Birds have made over 50 other mediocre apps before The Birds have finally made it to the top? The first Birds was just another mediocre app, with low budget and mediocre graphics and whatnot, without any expectations to raise anywhat big income, but under some wild circuimstances it got popular. They just hit lucky combo. And, oh why, remember Carmageddon game? There were another games of this kind, but none of them got as popular and famous as the first Carmageddon. Even the third in the series was considered utter junk even though it was about the same as the first two, just slight little changes turned gold into shit. They didn't hit the lucky combo with the 3rd one.

While I generally agree with you, I would like to add, that fun is not the same as commercial success. Even if fun was an objective measure, the game that is most fun is not necessarily the one that gets sold most. There are additional factors, like hype, marketing and luck.

[Ekamu]

So, its a gamble.

I should have figured.

I think that fun cas still be classified according to you're target audience to some very basic degree. You will at least have some starting point then the rest is lucky combo.

For example action/arcade games generally focus on risk and reward, how you create the risk and reward is lucky combo. It wont be an action game without some sort of risk involved and risk is not worth anything unless there is some sort of reward involved.

This is not necessarily for "fun" but more about psychology

You can still calculate the base fun-factor at least ( mainly dopamine release = fun ), that I'm sure of but I agree the rest is purely subjective and up to luck.

The problem is that everyone's neurons fire-up in different ways. Their are no two people with the exact same mind theirfore its imposible to subjectify what is fun and what is not but we all have similar brain make-up so at least their is some kind of outline to work from.

I'm the sort of person who hates unpredictability for example, I like my games to have strategy, to feel like I did something not out of random chance but because I outsmarted the AI and I have learned something/ progressed. Another person, same background, same up bringing, same everything hell he could be my twin might think otherwise and say that its random chance that creates fun.

But both of us would still enjoy a risk encounter, weather random or strategic or whatever releases dopamine/fun-factor-stimulus, and both of us would enjoy a reward after such a challenge to affirm this release as positive.

So as designers I guess we should be asking, what releases pleasure stimulus in human beings, risk in one thing, so is learning and the feeling of progress, so is sex and violence, escapism and exploration, the unknown and discovery, gratification and identity, rising from weakness to power e.t.c, their many factors that could be later combined to create a lucky combo.

[raidho36]

Yeah I've heard that theory, too. Unfortunatelly, it's a pure speculation based off some sophisms, which in turn based off vague facts sometimes and plain nothing for the most part. The problem with it is that workflow of the brain is overcomplicated to that extent that we hardly know anything about it besides very basics. It's like talking about maya calendars without knowing how did they counted the time.

There is an observable tendency, however, that simplier games trigger deeper concentration, the brain can more easily switch entirely to the game, and after certain extent of complexity, it's no longer possible for brain to concentrate entirely on the game. But you still need to provide some reasonable challenge to make player play the game - too easy and it will be boring, too hard and it will be unplayable.

[jjmafiae]

we need to get GladOS to calculate it for us.

[Ekamu]

Here is an example of an incredible simple game, like you mentioned, that seems to captivate the brain much more than other more complex games.
http://www.boson-x.com/

You just use the arrows to jump, thats it and there is nothing more, everything else is just about reaction time and flashy visuals. This game designed on paper would seem boring, and maybe even stupid, but for some reason it works and its now a fairly popular indie game on game jolt and the like.

From here on I will never underestimate the power of the prototype, I guess there truly is just no way you can even hint at getting a plan/formula on paper that might seem fun without a prototype.
Its maybe even pointless to plan anything at all without a prototype. Infact I now see that the only thing you can really count on IS a prototype.

then hope for that Lucky Combo!

It's just a gamble, I guess thats where the fun is lol