[HN Gopher] Replayability in game design
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Replayability in game design
Author : amichail
Score : 50 points
Date : 2022-08-07 12:14 UTC (1 days ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Funny, the game I replayed the most was 'Hack', a Rogue-like.
|
| I can't quite put my finger on why it was so addictive, but I
| think it was the randomness - discovering which potions were
| which, which scrolls were which, and of course hoping for a
| merchant with a massive shop full of goods to pillage kept me
| playing.
|
| The difficulty was quite high too, forcing quite a few replays
| before getting that Amulet of Yendor
| SSchick wrote:
| Got baited by the headline into thinking this would be an article
| about determenism and implementation of 'replay' functionality
| but this is interesting as well.
|
| I personally like to think the most 'replayable' games are the
| ones that have deep emergent gameplay.
|
| Eg. interactions between many different mechanics that when
| combined create unique/challenging/entertaining situations
| without being programmatically forced to occur.
|
| Unfortunately capturing this is notoriously hard and (from my
| experiences) primarily out in multiplayer games since humans are
| generally unpredictable and tend to find interesting edge-cases
| in game mechanics.
| maltyr wrote:
| Games actively train a player's "skill". I define the player's
| skill as the player's ability to use the mechanics in the game to
| meet the challenge the game is presenting.
|
| The way to make a game more replayable, then, boils down to 3
| things:
|
| 1) Make the game more challenging. This forces the player to
| change their approach to problems (because their old solution no
| longer works)
|
| Multi-agent games do this by having a variety of opponents.
|
| Single-player games do this by ramping up the difficulty,
| generally by making the execution requirements tighter. More
| complexity, or less leeway for mistakes.
|
| Leaderboard-type games do this by using a "best score" as the
| goal. (e.g. Rhythm games, racing games, etc.)
|
| 2) Adding and/or removing mechanics that force the player to
| change their approach to problems. Again, this is either because
| the old solution doesn't work, or you must use the new mechanic
| in the solution.
|
| 3) Add randomness, mimicking either of the above. (e.g.
| Roguelikes/lites, deckbuilders, etc.)
|
| There's also the possibility of extending play-ability by
| "creating new content". I think this isn't really
| "re"playability, since the generated content hasn't been "played"
| before, but procedurally-generated content and sandbox games have
| this sort of code-generated-novelty-as-replayability.
| kibwen wrote:
| One topic that I didn't see it address: _should_ your game be
| replayable? For many (most?) of my favorite games, movies, and
| books, I don 't really care about experiencing them again. The
| first time through was delightful, and then I'm happy to move on
| and try other things.
|
| It's great if your game _is_ replayable, but not all games need
| to worry about replayability. And even if your game is
| replayable, it should still be fun even to people who only play
| through once, without locking core mechanics behind endless
| repetition. And the pursuit of replayability is no excuse for
| trying to get your players addicted; players should feel free to
| stop when they 've had their fill, without any pressure to
| consume more.
| mediaman wrote:
| And implementing replayability often comes at a cost: it is
| much more difficult to create an interesting and compelling
| story, for example, or witty dialogue, if it must also have the
| sorts of variation to allow for novel experiences upon replay.
|
| That's not important for all games, but for some, it absolutely
| is the difference between a deep and meaningful experience and
| one that has better replayability mechanics but lesser
| emotional impact.
|
| I've seen a number of high potential games get ruined because
| the developers thought they had to make it more replayable,
| which precluded other aspects of the game.
| proc0 wrote:
| This is a good analysis. I think there is a high level
| perspective that abstracts most of those points. For this
| context, games fall into two main categories or a combination of
| both: the ones created with a designed solution, and the ones
| created without a solution that the players have to discover
| and/or solve.
|
| A game is "solved" when the player has accomplished the main
| goals of the game, which usually means having gone through the
| main experience it's offering. A highly replayable game is one
| that was not designed with the solution out of the box. These
| games are usually "sandbox" games, and the designers created
| systems and tools for the player to use, but they did not design
| the specific experiences the player will go through.
|
| Sanbox games have emergent gameplay. In contrast, games that are
| designed with a solution in mind, don't have as much replayable
| value. Games that are story driven, like the The Last of Us, or
| Resident Evil, have less replay value than Factorio or GTA which
| are sandbox games. Many games are in between, having elements of
| both.
| adamesque wrote:
| As pointed out in other comments, this article doesn't discuss
| the fundamental prerequisite for replayability, which is to build
| a core loop that is fun and rewarding. The fact that there are so
| many definitions of "rewarding" (challenging, relaxing,
| aesthetically pleasing, competitive, collectability) makes the
| solution space huge, and loot tables and biomes are a very small
| fraction.
| njyx wrote:
| Agreed that you need a rewarding core loop and also one that
| becomes richer over time (more characters? more actions, more
| power, less power...). But, I think you also need a longer term
| engagement element beyond the core loop: being engaged with the
| goals of game. If there's only one (e.g. only one ending) then
| if you love the game you'll try to reach it at least one. If
| there are more you might be tempted to try them all.
|
| Another thing that helps and isn't discussed much in the
| article is the "meta" game around a game. Especially if the
| game has liveops and new characters come out, there are events
| etc. Most by themselves probably won't make someone replay. But
| if there's enough new stuff and a community which is constantly
| discovering new stuff to do then that can spark the desire to
| play again.
| adamesque wrote:
| My favorite way for a core loop to become richer over time is
| when the loop has a very high skill ceiling the player can
| move through in a semi-controlled way. For multiplayer games,
| this means good matchmaking, but for other games this is
| layered in via optional challenges/achievments/bonus goals
| etc.
|
| The stated goal of the game (aka reaching the ending) may or
| may not be along this path.
| setr wrote:
| This article almost entirely focuses on content variation, but I
| think far more important is game system complexity and inter-
| complexity. The ultimate problem stopping replay (assuming you
| like the game systems in the first place) is the realization that
| you've "solved it" -- you understand the various inputs and
| outputs of any action or mechanism and can trivially predict the
| results.
|
| This usually occurs because the game systems themselves are
| trivial (often a set of independent features stuffed behind the
| same UI, but A has no influence on B), because one or a few of
| the systems are overwhelmingly influential (e.g. melee mechanics
| don't matter if guns are trivially superior for all scenarios),
| or because the game itself doesn't incentivize the player to
| actually exploit those systems to any real degree (e.g. the game
| is too easy or the levels don't introduce enough new constraints,
| so the first solution found applies globally; often fixed by
| player-induced artificial challenges like no X runs).
|
| Multiplayer however cheats this because even trivial systems can
| become a huge exploration space when incentivized by direct
| competition (analysis and understanding is pushed to the limit;
| e.g. sm64 requires a certain level of understanding to play
| effectively, but speed runners and TAS take that understanding to
| the nth degree) and the players themselves bring metagaming as an
| additional system worth exploring (eg any competitive
| multiplayer)
|
| It's also confounded by multiplayer games that are less "played"
| and more used as a social space -- replacing the shopping mall --
| like many mmo's, Minecraft, etc. You're not replaying so much as
| visiting and killing time between social interactions (so even
| highly repetitive actions often suffice).
|
| The content variation is largely necessary to give reason and
| space to explore the game systems under novel constraints.
| forgotpwd16 wrote:
| Note though that a game can have emerged complexity arising
| from simple rules. Classic examples will be chess and go.
| Jensson wrote:
| Chess and Go are only popular for legacy reasons, they
| shouldn't be used as examples of good game design. People
| care about the complexity in those games only because of the
| legacy culture and competitions, people would never care
| about them as new games without all that history.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| They're only POPULAR for legacy reasons, but popularity is
| a very poor proxy for game design. Chess and Go are great
| games.
|
| Fixed start, no hidden information, turn based games are
| pretty rare anymore. They're not eyecatching, but they're
| still good concepts.
| palmetieri2000 wrote:
| I love both of these games although I'm not particularly
| good or knowledgeable about either. Just out of
| curiosity, do you think there are any interesting
| resolutions to the issues around the balance of who gets
| to go first? (First-Move Advantage)
|
| WARNING: KINDA A RAMBLE, STOP READING HERE IF BORED
| EASILY.
|
| I've also played a lot of Magic the Gathering, which of
| course has hidden information and a hybrid fixed start.
| Both players have the same number of cards in their hand
| and on the field[1], but will almost certainly have
| different cards to each other even in Deck X vs Deck X
| mirror match ups.
|
| In competitive MtG with a best-of-3 system, there can be
| a sense felt by the players that the die roll for
| Game-1-Turn-1 has a disproportionate effect on the match.
| Despite the roll giving you the choice of first or second
| turns, it is decidedly unusual for players to win the
| roll and choose to go second (even though the player who
| goes first skips their first card draw).
|
| For the sake of the argument, if we assume going second
| definitively has lower chance of victory then the players
| perceptions can become frustrated and this can effect
| their desire to replay the game.
|
| Because the loser of Game 1 selects who goes first in
| Game 2, and will likely pick themselves, and the winner
| of Game 1 is more likely to have won the Game-1-Turn-1
| dice roll.
|
| We get an outcome in which beating your opponent in Game
| 1 cascades, because your opponent will choose to go first
| in the 2nd game and either win returning the turn 1
| advantage to you for the tiebreaker G3 or lose and the
| match concludes. Because Game 1 has disproportionate
| significance AND is the only game where luck decides who
| goes first AND is chronologically the the first to occur,
| I have observed (and felt) a kind of stewing frustration
| at 'playing out' the rest of some matches after losing
| the die roll and then having a poor early game 1.
|
| I believe a this is mostly concerns players emotions and
| perceptions about 'inherent' advantages, which is why
| I've talked about it as a factor of replayability rather
| than just strategy.
|
| [1]In a typical circumstance, some cards or deck types
| can alter the initial game state of the board or hand.
| stcredzero wrote:
| _People care about the complexity in those games only
| because of the legacy culture and competitions_
|
| I think this is less than half true. People wouldn't care
| about those games, if they didn't have the amount of
| emergent complexity that they do. It would be more accurate
| to say that they soak up so much attention because of
| legacy culture and competitions. But those wouldn't exist,
| if those games didn't have certain qualities which made
| them eminently interesting and replayable in the first
| place.
|
| Could they have been replaced through different accidents
| of history with other games entirely? Sure. But those games
| would have had many of the same qualities.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Indeed. Chess and go have survived a long time, and they
| would not have done so if they were not interesting in
| their own right. We just don't see the games lost to
| history.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| > The ultimate problem stopping replay
|
| For me it's _time._ If I know in advance the game will take 10
| hours to finish then no matter how much variety it has, I 'm
| not gonna play it again.
| Jensson wrote:
| Why did you play it the first time? Why would the second time
| be different? Your statement doesn't answer this fundamental
| question about replayability.
| egypturnash wrote:
| The first time you play it, you will be encountering the
| game's art, music, and design for the first time. Will it
| be good? Bad? Just okay? Will there be one surprise that
| takes your breath away? It's full of novelty and
| possibility.
|
| The second time, you mostly know what you're in for. There
| may be different paths to take, there may be new stuff
| unlocked by your first play through. But if you made it to
| the end then you've probably exhausted most of its unique
| content. There may be other things to come back for (DLC,
| competitive play, 100%, achievements, etc) but it's easy to
| put it down for good.
|
| How many books, movies, or TV shows do you come back to?
| How many do you go through once and never again? Why should
| a game be any different?
| boomlinde wrote:
| _> How many books, movies, or TV shows do you come back
| to? How many do you go through once and never again? Why
| should a game be any different?_
|
| You can design a game such that it's a somewhat unique
| experience every time you play it. Even games with
| limited variation in setup allow different approaches
| from the player. That's not possible with traditional
| novels and film. At best, maybe you can review a film or
| a book and pay more attention to some detail you didn't
| notice that much in the first view, but in the end you
| are rather passively consuming a fixed narrative.
|
| Of course, how meaningful this is depends on whether the
| game mechanics stand out on their own, or if it's mostly
| a vessel for a fixed narrative. If the game is just a
| mechanically bland walk from one cutscene to another,
| with little agency, it might not seem worth it. A lot of
| AAA titles are like this IMO. If the game generates a
| unique set of challenges every time you play it, or
| rewards new approaches, there is much more fun to be had
| replaying it.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Depending of the definition of "to finish", this is
| completely not applicable to any open world RPGs. E.g.
| unless you consider game not finished until you completed
| all the side quests.
|
| Same for open-ended building games like Minecraft
| (technically completed when you kill the dragon), Cities:
| Skylines, or Factorio (when you send a rocket).
| adamrezich wrote:
| why should a book or movie be different from a game? well
| for one they're _wildly_ different media. what you wrote
| only applies to linear narrative-focused games, and if
| those are the kinds of games you like, that 's fine...
| but the medium has so much more to offer!
|
| I would rather try a janky, kind of bad, yet
| mechanically/systems-wise interesting game like Kenshi
| over another AAA movie-game any day of the week. I have
| no problem with linear/linearish narrative-focused games
| --I'm currently playing through a visual novel actually.
| but interactively conveying a pre-defined narrative
| (possibly with some "choices" sprinkled in here and
| there) is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg of
| possibilities the medium affords!
|
| the problem here is, video games are still a very young
| medium, so many people have preconceptions about
| conventional storytelling/narrative structure that they
| carry over from film and literature. many people want a
| video game they're considering purchasing to be something
| with an Hour Count you can look up online, weigh against
| your interest in the plot/setting/characters/whatever,
| and decide if playing through the predefined arc of the
| game is something worth their time. few people look for
| games with mechanics and systems that converge in
| interesting, complex, emergent ways, and say to
| themselves, that looks like something _fun_ to _play_
| (with) for _as long as I keep enjoying it_!
|
| Sea of Thieves is an interesting game because it attempts
| to bridge this gap. when my buddies and I play it every
| now and again, we _enjoy_ planning some loosely-defined
| goals for a session, then just fucking around on the open
| seas as we see fit. for us, something like seeing how
| many powder kegs we can gather and fit into the crow 's
| nest so as to test the viability of hucking them into the
| water and shooting them when fighting player ships, is
| _infinitely_ more entertaining and interesting that
| playing through the scripted storyline quests. but on the
| other hand, my fiancee loves to play through these
| scripted storyline quests with the wife of one of my
| friends, just dutifully following the quest instructions,
| looking up how to do things online if needed, whatever is
| necessary to check that quest off their list. this same
| friend 's wife has expressed in the past that she
| _cannot_ for the life of her understand the appeal of the
| roguelike /lite genre--"why would you just want to play
| the same thing over and over?"
|
| many people _like_ (and _expect games to be_ ) linear
| narrative experience video games, but more games should
| try to be more gamey, more systemsy, more emergent,
| because that's what makes the medium unique and different
| than others. the only issue with this is player
| expectations, which hopefully will shift somewhat with
| time.
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