ID:193087
 Mar 27 2002, 7:59 pm
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I'm sure this has been brought up before many times, but this time I've got a cause! I'm still trying to figure out exactly what makes a game "fun". I've got a few potential theories, but limited data to compare them with. So if everyone would please respond with a list of their favorite games and some things they like about that game, it would help a bunch, thanks!
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DWO is by far the best. Things I like about it:
1.) Very ambitious design, even if it is based on an old NES game. What other game designer will you see trying to make a menu system and a battle sytem like that? 2.) Very long, has a point. It takes most people over 20 hours to beat, has an actual story line 3.) Good map design, not too confusing like most byond games and it makes sense. 4.) Polished feel-recently it's been getting better and better, ex: you return to the last town you visited upon death or relog, only certain classes can equip certain weapons, parties etc. 5.) A pretty cool community, unlike the dbz games. Sure, there are a few punks but overall it is a good group of people to hang out with. Most of them never played Dragon Warrior before DWO. 6.) Most importantly, the person who programmed it isn't a jerk. Most other games on BYOND that I've been in have GMs that are power hungry-DWO only has two-the server host and Silk. | |
Actually, that game is still going, I think I saw a recent GameBoy game for it, and second, it is still a based on a game, if it was an orginal game, I would say superb!
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I don't know that I'm necessarily representative of a lot of the people here. I'm not particularly into RPGs and the last first person shooter I was particularly fond of was Doom 2. I go for mostly addictive single player games and fun party games. That said, some of my favorites here include:
Lexiconomy: excellent party game. With the right crowd, it's hours of fun and laughter, even if I'm not particularly good at it. Definitely high marks in the party/interacting with friends category. QuickStep: good combination of strategy and fun with friends. DMT: a high-speed reflex game I'm actually good at! I like games like this but I can't play them for too long or I get pretty jumpy. DragonSnot and Birdland are similar - lots of fun, but in small doses. Also, most of these games I tend to hit a wall where I won't get any better regardless of how much I play. After that, it's not quite as fun anymore. There are plenty of games I've played a few times and enjoyed, but for one reason or another, didn't get back to them much. I don't care for games with lots of killing, especially when I, as a newbie, would be a prime target. Tanks was a lot of fun the few times I played it, but I got killed so much that I kind of gave up. MLAAS was great fun (good party/social atmosphere) the first several weeks until people started getting significantly stronger than my rank 4 Red spy and kicking the snot out of me. Haven't had much time to pop in lately, and from what I read on the forum, I'd probably get destroyed anyway. I also played and enjoyed Bunniflip, Echelon, and Runica, among others, but haven't played enough yet to really put them at the top of my list. All of them had qualities that I like though: elements of strategy but not too complex (I suck at chess and will always suck at chess; not interested in playing it much), social play, clear goal. I guess those are essentially the qualities I look for in a game:
Some games I haven't had a chance to try but am meaning to check out when I get a chance include Incursion, Laser Wars, Medieval Conquest, Nyctophobia, Bacchanal, and probably more. So little time... | |
Air Mapster wrote:
DragonSnot and Birdland are similar - lots of fun, but in small doses. Also, most of these games I tend to hit a wall where I won't get any better regardless of how much I play. After that, it's not quite as fun anymore. DragonSnot actually has more of a strategy element than is apparent on the surface...there are a lot of strategies to employ. We need to go back and clean it up soon though -- BYOND updates have wreaked havoc on some of the later levels. | |
Deadron wrote:
DragonSnot actually has more of a strategy element than is apparent on the surface...there are a lot of strategies to employ. Oh, if there are problems due to newer updates, please report them. Even though some may be understandable, I would at least like to know how widespread the backwards incompatibilities are. For instance, we did not expect the new sleep() system to break anything, but apparantly it has had adverse effect on a number of games. That's not good at all .. we need better damage control. P.S. DragonSnot is one of my favorites too, especially in multiplayer mode. | |
Okay. It's definitely easier to say what I like about a particular game than what I like about fun games in general.
MLAAS: Even despite the occasional frustration from being killed so much, this is still one of my favorite games to play. I like the traditional RPG format of endlessly advancing and getting better stuff. It's satisfying. At least, it is as long as the challenges require more than clicking (or typing attack!) repeatedly, and the rewards are commesurate with the risks. It also helps that I can chat while I play, and that it's only hosted once a week, so it's like an "event." Bunniflip: A great game to play with others. While "the more the merrier" may apply, it is still great fun with just 2 players, unlike some other games where you'd really rather have more people for the full experience. The graphics and sounds are pleasing to the eyes and ears. The games can be very long, but at least that is somewhat controllable by the players (who could conceivably resist the temptation to earthquake one more time). Bombard: A very simple game that's... uh... fun. (There are lots of very simple games, but not all link thought-requiring challenges with desirable rewards.) It also has "neat" factors like the terrain generation, choosing your tank color, and watching projectile trajectories. Shapeshifter: Very addictive. Watching the pretty shapes dissolve when you do something right goes straight to the pleasure center of your brain. It's like that game on that episode of star trek. Great sounds too. These are, of course, not the only games I like! Now for couple games I don't play much but wanted to mention anyway... DMT: The goal of this game and how it's accomplished is just so bizarre and novel. Unlike the other games in this post, it is "frantic," which is lots of fun (unless you are looking to relax). Its random "terrain" generation system is just as fascinating as Bombard's. Appealing graphics and music. The only drawback of the gameplay is that you can't really chat while playing, and Leftley has faster reflexes than everyone else. If Guy ever feels like tinkering with this some more ::cough::... maybe he could make the map shorter but wider, make games take less time, color-code the line choice messaging, and add high scores... then it'd be killer. Slurpy: A great puzzle game. Adds in the need for reflexes, which some don't like, but I find acceptable because the penalties for dying aren't bad. Great graphics and sound. Good level of difficulty. I'd be delighted if Spuzzum made another 15 levels. Space Tug: This game is just too much. From the size of the ship to the disembodied heads to the little details like lights flickering on, it is one of a kind. Great atmosphere. I remember the very first time I played it. I left the room you genned in, an alien popped out and ate me, and I almost jumped out of my pants. However, the fun depends a lot on the quality of the participants, and when the era of GoBs ended, that quality became lacking. (That goes for Lexiconomy too.) Z | |
Does this only include currently running games? If not, I'd definitely have to say Miner League for my favorite. It was laggy at times, but for the Dantom hosting sessions it ran smoothly enough (for an action game with a 56k dialup on the other end, that is!)
That aside, in general I'd say my favorite games generally have moderately high levels of strategy and luck, regardless of genre. I never quite get into a pure strategy game as much as I do strategy games with a bit of a random factor thrown into the mix. Ditto goes for basically any sort of game; if I'm playing a MUD, I don't want to go through all the same actions in the exact same order over and over again to get the exact same result. To a certain extent, the actions of other players can be substituted for this random factor, but it's still not a perfect substitute. | |
Leftley wrote:
Does this only include currently running games? If not, I'd definitely have to say Miner League for my favorite. It was laggy at times, but for the Dantom hosting sessions it ran smoothly enough (for an action game with a 56k dialup on the other end, that is!) I loved ML too, even though it crawled to a halt at times. I wonder if some of the advancements in BYOND since Lexy wrote that would make it smoother? | |
Bunniflip: A great game to play with others. While "the more the merrier" may apply, it is still great fun with just 2 players, unlike some other games where you'd really rather have more people for the full experience. The graphics and sounds are pleasing to the eyes and ears. The games can be very long, but at least that is somewhat controllable by the players (who could conceivably resist the temptation to earthquake one more time). That game drives me insane, actually -- it's fun, but freakishly annoying at times, especially considering I stink like Limburger when I play it. Bombard: A very simple game that's... uh... fun. (There are lots of very simple games, but not all link thought-requiring challenges with desirable rewards.) It also has "neat" factors like the terrain generation, choosing your tank color, and watching projectile trajectories. Aw, foo, Leftley doesn't own the choose-your-own-colour concept. He's just first to actually make it publically available. ;-P Shapeshifter: Very addictive. Watching the pretty shapes dissolve when you do something right goes straight to the pleasure center of your brain. It's like that game on that episode of star trek. Great sounds too. Ha! I remember that episode -- mainly because I thought the girl (was that Ashley Judd?) was very, erm, attractive. Way out of my league and age group, but very, erm, attractive. My favourite part of the whole game, however, is the music. It lends a perfect atmosphere to the game. (Hey, Mapster -- do you do requests? ;-) ) These are, of course, not the only games I like! I loved DMT, but it's too fast for me to keep coming back to. I wasn't too bad at it, but I play games to relax, not to get the adrenaline pumping. Well, then again, I do play Quake III Team Arena to totally, uh, own the bots, but I never play it online. Slurpy: A great puzzle game. Adds in the need for reflexes, which some don't like, but I find acceptable because the penalties for dying aren't bad. Great graphics and sound. Good level of difficulty. I'd be delighted if Spuzzum made another 15 levels. The final version is actually gonna have 50 levels total, with a "boss" after every 10. =) I went for cheapness -- the MIDI songs that I use in Slurpy will be the bosses' names, except subtly varied. "Infinitor", "Luvatt", "Firehawk", "Shakesphere", and Mr. Mooharabi MCVII himself. I might actually be a jerk and add a second quest to the game too, but I think it'd be easier just to make an Adventures of Lolo-esque puzzle/adventure game. =) Anyway, I'm hoping to add similar elements to Slurpy like those from Chip's Challenge (everyone should remember Chip's Challenge =P) that will make the game a little less of a timing game and more of a puzzle game. I won't have "Spy" tiles, though -- that was the one thing I hated most about the Challenge. Space Tug: This game is just too much. From the size of the ship to the disembodied heads to the little details like lights flickering on, it is one of a kind. Great atmosphere. I remember the very first time I played it. I left the room you genned in, an alien popped out and ate me, and I almost jumped out of my pants. However, the fun depends a lot on the quality of the participants, and when the era of GoBs ended, that quality became lacking. (That goes for Lexiconomy too.) Yep. Some grief-protection and some ability to host the game and kick out problem players would do wonders for that game. If I ever get around to working on it, I think FaceHug would be a nice treat. Fortunately, BfS is on a good production roll right now, thanks to these new pixel features, and my own desire to craft out the story that is Solaris. | |
I like MLAAS. The fact that its hosted every friday gives everybody an equal amount of chance to gain ranks and not just have some people host private sessions and gain rank just to kill the newbies.
Spacetug can be fun at times too. I agree with everybody here. Except DWO, I never got into playing that game. | |
Despite all the great games out there I like Capture the Flag 2 the best :). Nothing better than turning a map into a wastland with a few large explosives or a meteor storm.
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Well to me my favorite game is whatever game I feel like playing at the time. If im really mad, I may want to kill things. Or if I feel smart(very seldom) I want to play a strategic chess type game. Maybe I just feel like having some team for help, then I resort to multiplayer team based games. Maybe a great game would be a game that when you enter you go in the door that suits your mood.
Door 1 Depressed - This section will attempt to cheer you up Door2 Frustration - Feel like taking your pain out on someone Door3 Intelligence - this game is for smart people(requires thinking) Door4 Stupid - non thinking game (DBZ) Door5 - make your own game Im sure there could be more doors :) Wall04 | |
Tanks: Blowing stuff up is great, and instead of waiting for half an hour to powerup, you can create a fully equipped tank in just a few minutes. That is a truly great feature
SpaceTug: This is addictive beyond describing, with somehthing chasing you, or you chasing people, plus the space effects... can't wait for the next version!
Bunniflip: This is one of the best card games and is so addictive, this is truly great work on a BYOND game. The cards are very well thought out
Sadly, there arn't more, although some come close, there's not really that many great BYOND games