what makes a game good?

[kodi]

Unless it's an arcadey game: when a game truly immerses me in an environment, whether it's linear or not.
Also when the controls, camera, interface and other QoL features work as they really ought to. 

[Kokoro Hane]

I feel like this is quite an subjective question, since everyone's tastes vary, so what I think would make a perfect game may be total trash to another and vice versa. First of all, seeing actual effort and passion definitely helps, because if the dev themselves don't like what they're making then nobody else will lol. I want to play a game that's obviously designed by people who also loves games. For me, I absolutely love exploration. I love great level design and non-linear maps where, yes, there's a Point A to Point B to get to the next level, but there's also some other paths I can tread and explore. Secrets are always a bonus as it adds something new to discover and you can't always get it in your first go, sometimes you may find these years down the line. I also think amazing music really helps to immerse someone into the world. Also is your game simply just straight to the action or is it story based? If it has heavy emphasis on story, then the story must be good where I care about what's going on instead of agonising for a skip feature. I personally love story-driven games, but it's gotta be engaging.

[Xcalibur]

* Balanced, with a reasonable difficulty curve, nothing OP/broken

* Fairness, no cheap shots or excessive penalties

* Agency, with plenty of options, stuff to explore, and a sense of control over events

* Consistent rules/mechanics of gameplay, which are intuitive yet complex (easy-to-learn/hard-to-master)

* Tight, responsive controls and an easy-to-use interface

* Story/atmosphere/music

* Replayability/variety

* Sense of progression, proper pacing, and being able to pick up where you left off (via password/save/warps/etc)

 

I think that covers it. Of course, the specifics of what makes games work depends on genre -- platformers, FPS, puzzle-solving, RPG, grand strategy, beat-em-ups, metroidvanias, etc all have very different qualities, and thus a different emphasis on what works. However, I believe the principles I've outlined above capture much of the magic of good games. If you review the best games, you'll find that most of these rules are applied consistently.

Edited February 5 by Xcalibur

[Xcalibur]

I thought I'd provide examples to the above, but I ended up typing up a storm. So if it's ok, I'd like to break this into a second post to emphasize what I said above:

 

Hexen has rpg elements and really gets story/atmosphere/music down, the hub system lets you explore & solve in an open-ended sort of way, and once they're fully solved, you feel like you've spent enough time there and you're ready to advance (pacing/progression). The combat system and interface work well (consistent mechanics). Although, I'll admit enemy/weapon variety is somewhat lacking, but it's not terrible. There are also points where it's easy to get stuck, but I was always able to unstick myself, so I think the difficulty is fair enough.

 

Battletoads has tight controls, crazy variety with different mechanics/physics in levels, intuitive/fair gameplay, great aesthetics/music/sfx, a warp system to let you skip ahead, and so on. Its main sin is being relentlessly, punishingly difficult, which is only partially offset by the ability to stack 1ups in level 2. The Japanese version nerfs the difficulty, which I'd recommend to anyone who got flummoxed by this infamous yet excellent game.

 

Super Mario Bros 3 has all this, intuitive/effective controls, easy to get into, a difficulty curve that gradually goes from easy to hard, consistent pacing/progression through levels and worlds, all sorts of secrets to discover, cool powerups, charming aesthetics/artstyle, and plenty of variety with different gimmicks for each world. The only sin I can think of is not being able to save your progress (especially score/items/etc), but the warp whistles offset this.

 

Super Mario Bros 2 has much of the above: proper difficulty curve, great aesthetics, secrets & exploration, intuitive mechanics, different gimmicks & challenges in the various worlds, warp system, and so on. You can also play as different characters with different pros/cons to their controls, which provides lots of replayability & variety. It's short enough so that not being able to save isn't a problem, and you don't lose unique items like in smb3. I can't think of any sins, but maybe that's because it's my personal favorite (and the source of my avatar). Well, maybe the backgrounds could've had detail instead of being blank, but it's an NES game so that's understandable.

 

Genghis Khan, a grand strategy game by KOEI and one of my lesser-known favorites, has excellent art & music, surprisingly deep mechanics that also make logical sense, menus are easy to navigate & use, the battle system works well and has some interesting gimmicks, and so on. You can pursue different strategies and play as different factions for replayability, you can adjust difficulty, and there's two different campaigns, with the first being shorter and ideal for noobs. The main drawback is that its learning curve is a bit steep -- if you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to make fatal mistakes and quickly game over; it's not unfair exactly, but the competency floor is high compared to other games.

 

I could keep going, but this post is already long. Point is, the best games I've played tend to exemplify those principles I listed above. When it comes to trash games, they tend to be lacking in these things -- wonky hitboxes, inconsistent difficulty or pacing, clunky controls, sending you all the way back to the beginning, sameness & tedium, being forced to do things one way and not having options, and so forth.

[Pancrasio]

4K hd ultra photorealistic AI upscaled raytracing graphics 500 hours of content realistic accurate weapons loot boxes crypto gambling new tech 1.200.000.000 km³ large world dragon rpg crafting mechanics and sex minigame

[Koko Ricky]

Good games generally have a strong sense of aesthetic, design, and interaction. Failure to properly tend to these attributes will inevitably diminish the game's potential enjoyment. 

 

Without a strong aesthetic, the game may appear bland or unappealing, discouraging immersion. 

 

Without strong design, gameplay can potentially feel aimless, arbitrary, cryptic, or overly repetitive.

 

Without strong interaction, gameplay can become shallow, feel too easy or too difficult, or become overly padded by uninteresting or overly complicated mechanics. 

 

As far as how to handle specific elements, it comes down to whether those elements meaningfully benefit gameplay. Story, for example, is integral to an RPG, but neglible for a puzzler. A complex combat system could enhance one game, while making another needlessly involved. Linear progression could be a great way to tighten the loop of one game, but for another, it could limit engagement.

 

 

 

[Denzel20]

Open gl graphics GZDoom Brutal Doom Black Edition 3.35 [Rain, Parallax, Visor, Relighting] 4k/60 fps. Universal Rain and Snow. HD textures and Dynamic lights
 

[Wahrnehmungskrieg]

Games, to be good, should be honest. Not honest as in 'ethical', though that is certainly helpful, but a sort of committment to driving truly at the idea that is fuelled entirely by the developers' drives and own unflagging ethic. In the modern industry this is rather difficult unless you have a lot of money to burn or are willing to sacrifice either all your free hours or your quality of living. That's not a choice people should have to make^.

 

A really good game feels like an active challenge (not of the sort 'can you kill 50 enemies in six minutes' but of the sort -- 'I am secretly saying this is the case, do you dare refute me') presented by the developer to you. It seems that it has overstepped its boundaries a little, that you've been enveloped by its aura.

 

Other thoughts in a spoiler for length:

 

Spoiler

Games more than any other medium except for television and prose often sacrifice their own honesty in order to keep the game churning, in some belief that merely seeing the engine continuing to run is fascination enough, or that new vistas can be appreciated enough simply through variety. 'The form's done, content will do' and so on. But games are not perpetual motion machines. They must at least be novel as centropic devices.

 

(or really, the understanding, mostly from Higher Powers, that the audience tends to value the experience wholly in terms of hours per dollar american, like games deserve to be understood in the same way you might measure petrol. Games as a car, getting you from a mental A-to-B. Modern games take a comical length of time to complete, and very few justify it, they're as dull as recce.) A really good game is like a gem, it doesn't need to be large, you complete it and then once you have completed it and play it a few more times you begin to actually understand it, it is a feeling that is hard to articulate simply because it has become far more than the sum of the systems from which it's comprised. It is a feeling that is not adulterated by adrelanine or whathaveyou, it is something truly miraculous.

 

And further, games should (I say should, but this is an exceptionally hard task) be honest regarding both the powers and also the severe limitations of the medium and perhaps striving to understand them as to surpass them (perhaps maybe a handful of games have pointed towards this, not really sure if one has made it). If the (modern) game-form were to be seen as a kind of art it would be chiefly the marrying of the essential of music with that of architecture (the fact that music is a sound is not its essence, see Beethoven), but this does not strike at what games really are. Games chiefly and really have always been about virtual systems that break down from their ideal representations simply because they have to be implemented. It seems perverse, to me, when a game deliberately tries to hide that fact. They'll be found out eventually. Why not admit it. The implementation of systems parallels, I think, the presence of the kuroko in Japanese theatre, and should be treated likewise.

 

[rita remton]

for me, "surprises".