What really makes a game fun and worth playing?

What makes a game fun?

That seems like a so simple question. The more I contemplate it, the more multilayered it becomes.

What is fun? 
 
What triggers a fun experience?

How to create something that is fun?


Fun is all about:

• challenge
• reward
• taking risks
• exploration
• the rush of the unknown
• taking opportunities
• collecting things
• messing around and testing out limits
• answering the question, "what would happen, if...?"

...all in a playful way. It's how nature makes all life learns its lessons. Fun can also be something that brings back childish wonder and curiosity and allows us to reconnect to this deepest part of ourselves many of us learned to "grow away" from. Maybe that's why games are generally liked by many people - whether it be tabletop games, video games, or also the games you played on the playground, or later the "mind games" adults play (games that sometimes turn into not so funny ones..).


How does fun in games look like? 

I can think of a couple of things. Generally spoken, flashy-ness and the right aesthetic can make a HUGE difference in making a game fun.

If your explosions look amazing, the player will have endless fun making things blow up. For a while, they'll try to cause explosions whenever they can (exploration & testing out your limits).

If your GUI features detailed LED displays that lighten up, players may act similarly. Good sign: when you're coding something like this and notice you end up playing with it instead of just testing it!

If the sound design is exceptional, like in Don't Starve, only the act of opening up the build menu already contributes to the user having fun.


But it's not only aesthetics that make a game fun.

Rewarding the player for interacting with the environment, like loot drops from enemies or treasure chests, is also a good way to make a game more enjoyable.

To a degree, randomized outcomes (loot) gives uncertainty and make the player strive for more (rush of the unknown). Even if procedural generated content potentially becomes repetitive after a while, it can still give variety and spice up a game considerably. This is very well demonstrated in the game DoomRL or Phantasmal: House of the Shunned Ones, where each run will be different due to the fact the maps are generated and you find different equipment and enemies each time. Then, if you're lucky and good enough, you might even get to the end!

Let's take a look at Minecraft. The sheer amount of possibilities to play the game and build whatever is on your mind is probably the most important reason why it has gotten so popular. Players would create new challenges for themselves and take on them as they build whatever is on their minds.

In Fallout 4, I had a lot of fun just by collecting all weapon mods and using the best mods for my guns, because I am little perfectionist gun nut! Collecting things generally is a good idea, no matter what you collect: achievements, items, coins, badges, titles, obligatory notes that - as a whole - tell a story... or just screenshots of Fallout teddy bears!
 
In games like the Fallout series, it was also fun to test out your limits in dialogue with the characters and see how they react - without suffering from potential backlash, as would happen real life. This can be a valuable social learning tool.

Things that can spoil fun a game:

A reliance on too much luck can potentially spoil a game if the outcome becomes too unpredictable. It's important to mix in an adequate amount of player skill required if the player wants to advance in a level.

Game mechanics that don't go too well and are in conflict with each other are another aspect that can spoil much of the fun.

For example, take a look at Don't Starve: it's a survival game taking place in a procedural generated world, but exploration is actually discouraged by the fact time is very limited and you die in the dark. Damn Charlie stealing your soul at night! This also puts the player under a lot of pressure. Of course, this can be fun for certain players, but after a while patience runs low and most just prefer to quit the game instead. Something you, as someone who makes games, should avoid!


I hope my insights gave you an interesting perspective on the topic "fun". Thanks to @TheSnee for giving me some ideas for this article!

If you want to check some more game development related articles, you may be interested in how to store your data in a Java game or check these 5 useful tools to start out gamedev.