In this post, I’ve briefed my journey to understand games, what makes them fun, and how I translate this understanding to making my designs. Along the way, I’ve trodden on the path paved by the experts before, expanded on their ideas where I can, and hopefully urged you to consider different perspectives with the points I made and questions I asked.

But, What are Games?

To understand the fun in games, I’m first compelled to define these terms. Many people throughout history attempted to explain what embodies games. Since games comprise many genres from sports and the games of our childhood to board and video games, reaching a consensus on a comprehensive definition is impossible. In his paper, I Have No Words & I Must Design, Greg Costikyan defines games as “An interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal.” I want to raise a couple of discussion points regarding his definition.

On Interactivity

Intrinsically, puzzles require the players to perform a sequence of correct moves and the state of the puzzle does not react to the players’ moves. Costikyan points out that even though almost every game contains some form of puzzle-solving of the systems and the elements of a game, puzzles are not games since they are not interactive. So, we know what’s non-interactive, then what causes interactivity? I concluded that interactivity arises from the players’ access to partial information, requiring some for making informed decisions, but lacking the full picture, meaning they have to actively contribute. If the player knew every single detail of how a game works and the behavior of every actor, he could calculate each step from the beginning of the game to completion. Thus, turning the game into a puzzle, indicating that foreknown change of the game state is not interactivity either, it’s just a part of the puzzle. This is not the case in games. Even in a perfect information game like chess, players can guess but never exactly know the actions of the other actor, requiring them to adjust their moves according to their opponents. On top of that, real-time games force players to react on a moment to moment basis, withholding the time required to calculate the perfect set of moves. Subsequently, the players can only make an educated decision from various options, relying on their skill and knowledge of the game. In his design blog, Game Design Concepts, Ian Schreiber points out that obvious choices can turn into meaningful ones under time constraints, emphasizing further that even simple decisions can add to the player interaction if we reduce his access to complete information. But, we need to be cautious as we take away the knowledge from the decision-making for the sake of interactivity. Since, at the other end of the spectrum, little to no knowledge means any choice made by the player is barely meaningful and blind decisions are hardly any more interactive than obvious ones. Games that find the right balance on the amount of knowledge accessible to the player, represent the pinnacle of interactivity. This is one of the reasons why I believe MOBA games like Dota 2, LoL, and shooter games such as Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 are still player favorites despite being more than a decade old. Player decisions are strengthened by puzzle-solving of the mechanics & understanding of the game, and challenged by the dynamic game state during gameplay, providing a fresh and ever-changing experience even after thousands of hours.

On Endogenous Meaning

With the rise of the trend of incorporating blockchain technology and NFTs in games, games are closer more than ever to being a part of our daily life than being a time off from it. Even before these changes, some games were meaningful outside of the play session itself. But these cases can be mostly categorized as competitions and tournaments, separate from casual play. Although as a designer the new era of possibilities excites me, I am wary that this change can take away from why we enjoy games. Thinking along the lines of Costikyan, I believe games must begin at the start of the play session and end when the session is over. Thus, providing a safe space for the players to be whoever they want to be, in any way they desire. Furthermore, losing is an integral part of games, providing the other half of the fun by motivating the player to be better and by making the wins meaningful. If losing in a game also means losing in real life, doesn’t it contradict why we play games, to begin with? Games that expand their meaning outside the borders of this safe space, risk losing the inherent benefit of being a game.

As I formulate more of my thoughts, I will share them in future blog posts. But in essence, I believe Costikyan’s definition is the most encompassing and functional definition of games. Unfortunately, this definition doesn’t help us in answering “why” or “how” a game is fun, but it establishes the boundaries and fundamentals for our designs.

Fun?

LeBlanc’s taxonomy of game pleasures builds upon our definition of games and lays the groundwork for defining fun. LeBlanc’s categorization presents 8 elements, namely sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, and submission. Although its universality and completeness are debated, this taxonomy enables us to analyze games in 8 different dimensions. Each dimension presents a spectrum and any game that we can think of contains a combination of these elements. Thus to create fun we need to find the right combination of these dimensions. But how can we decide on which ones to focus on without knowing what the player wants?

Bartle’s taxonomy of player types defines 4 types of players, namely achievers, explorers, socializers, and killers. Since Bartle’s categorization only lists MMO players, Amy Jo Kim expanded on this categorization by formulating Kim’s Social Action Matrix. This matrix divides players into 4 quadrants, competitors, collaborators, expressers, and explorers. Its universality and completeness are debated (again), but this helps us realize the existence of various player types and that those player types expect different types of pleasures we listed with LeBlanc’s taxonomy. In the book 21st Century Game Design, Chris Bateman and Richard Boon propose the player types are based on Myers-Briggs personality types and Ralph Koster disputes the accuracy of this association in his book A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Furthermore, interests and thus types of players exceed their categorization and change over time, sometimes during the same play session, proving the inadequacy of player categorizations to capture the uniqueness of each individual. Yet we know we can approach categorization of players as we did to the elements of fun, with dimensions of spectrums, and tailor the fun element according to that.

This raises the question, should we aim to make “fun” games to begin with? A hyper-casual or casual mobile game designer would debate that he’d rather design addictive games. Educational games aim to teach real-life applicable skills, putting fun elements lower in their priority list. Then some games convey a human experience through their story. Have I cried multiple times while playing The Last of Us series? Yes. Was it “fun” to cry? Not really. Are they the best games I’ve ever played? Yes, yes, they are. At least the game development community seems like it has reached a consensus on using the word “engagement” rather than “fun”. And as designers, our goal is to craft an engaging and meaningful gameplay experience.

Design Process

In light of these clarifications, how should a design process start? It starts with understanding the players, their emotional expectations, the fantasy they chase, their playing patterns, their willingness to master the systems, and other things that define the player profile. Then, finding a meaningful experience that fits those profiles. Does the player want to feel empowered by mindlessly slaying legions of enemies (Synthetik)? Or feel triumph and camaraderie after failing countless times and finally escaping by the skin of their teeth with their friends (GTFO)? Gameplay, narrative, levels, objectives, and everything else that comprise a game serve that core experience. This experience guides how each component shall enhance various dimensions of LeBlanc’s taxonomy. We construct the structure of the game through mechanics and provide the tools for the players’ fantasy and expression. We use difficulty to guide the player flow by challenging them and making them struggle for a goal. We tell stories using spaces and characters to craft a narrative that provides meaning to the player. We do these by using techniques like pacing, flow theory, and studies like psychology, cinematography, and theatrics. The ambiguity of the definitions is liberating, the challenge is exciting and that is what makes designing “fun” games experiences fun.