Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #260 - 10 Things Every Game Needs: Fun

Episode Date: September 11, 2015

Mark continues with part 8 in his series on 10-things every game needs.

I'm put on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today is another in my series, 10 Things Every Game Needs. So far, we've done goal or goals. We've done rules. We've done interaction. We've done catch-up feature. We've done inertia. We've done surprise. We've done strategy. Which means we're up to number 8 on the list. Which means today's podcast is gonna be fun. I mean quite literally because today's podcast is the topic of fun. We are doing fun today. So of all my topics this is the squishiest one. Fun is somewhat subjective. I would argue today it's not completely subjective but what one person finds fun is different from what someone else might find fun. There's some universal truths that we'll get to.

But, so anyway, one of the things I said starting out is, look, here's ten things every game needs. Once you get more experience, eh, not every game needs all of these. There are games that don't have each of the components I'm talking about. But of the ten, the one you kind of need the most would be today's one, fun. Which means if a game just isn't fun, it's going to get harder for people to play it. And especially hard to get them to replay it. So, okay, let's walk through

what exactly fun is, why do you need it, and how do you make sure your game has it. Dun-da-da. Okay, so first and foremost, games are a form of entertainment. And what that means is people do it because it's something that they enjoy doing as a means to either relax or get away from things or, you know, the role of entertainment, we'll take a little quick deviation here, the role of entertainment is people have a need, an inherent need as humans to not always be in a happy place.

People need their happiness. People need either to forget about their troubles or laugh or, you know, just do something that sort of gives them some fun time. It's a happy time. And entertainment is a good means to do that. And so entertainment is something that's a pretty basic human need. Humans need to, every once in a while, just break out of their normal routine and get to observe something that just brings joy or some sort of positive emotion to them. Now what exactly fun is, is lots of debate. positive emotion to them.

Now, what exactly fun is, is lots of debate. Psychologists have argued it as much as game designers. What exactly is fun? What makes someone smile? What makes someone, what brings happiness to people? How do people,

what exactly creates this sense of fun? Now, I talked a lot, for example, this year at GDC, the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, I had a talk by a woman named Erin Hoffman on a concept called Sophia. And Sophia is the idea that fun comes from a sequence of things,

starting from a negative emotional place through, creates a mastery loop where you get yourself to a positive place. Like things are bad in the game. Uh-oh, horrible things might happen, but I learned something. And from that, I'm able to save myself and now good things.

And I'm able to take myself from a precarious place into a good place. And that was what she would argue is fun. Other people have just argued, you know, that fun has to do with getting certain chemicals in your brain going other people have talked about the ability to generate a smile or a laugh

I know other people have talked about fun as a means of social interaction as a means of bonding with other humans all this is true I mean in some level fun isn't just one thing, fun is many many things so I'm going to talk about lots and lots of facets of fun in your game. So let's walk through it.

So first and foremost, fun makes your game entertaining because one of the things you want is you want people to play your game and go, this was a positive experience. I had a positive experience because if they have a positive experience, they will want to do it again. In general, humans like positive experiences, and that if your game can be positive, if you walk away going, I enjoyed that interaction,

that was fun for me, you'll get people to want to come back. So first and foremost, fun allows you to have an entertainment quality to your game that increases replayability, which is pretty important. That what you want people to do is play your game, go down with a positive experience, I would like to play that game again. And we talk a lot about, I mean, not every game necessarily needs to be built for replayability. I've definitely seen games where you play it once and you're only supposed to play it once.

But that's the oddball out. Usually when you're designing a game, you want people to play it many and you're only supposed to play it once. But that's the oddball out. Usually when you're designing a game, you want people to play it many, many times. So one of the things to enable that is you really need the person when they're playing it to have a positive experience. A big part of the positive experience is an emotional one of, wow, that was, it brought a smile to my face. I could laugh with my friends. I was able to forget about my troubles. That it did things that generated a positive experience and through that, that's how you get them

to come and play again. Excuse me. Okay, social interaction. So another big thing about fun, I don't know whether or not, one could argue that fun brings social interaction. So, another big thing about fun, I don't know whether or not, one could argue that fun brings social interaction, and one could argue that social action brings fun, but they're very linked.

Another big part about a game, I mean, obviously, solitary games are not this, but all other games involving other people, is that a lot of the game is the joy of interaction between the people. Like, one of the things, when I was in college,

I had a group that I used to play games with, and we would go, we played all the games we had, and then eventually we ran out of games. We played every game. So we'd go to the store, we'd go to the game store, we'd buy a game, and we'd go back and we'd play it. And what we found was we'd have fun. It didn't matter what the game is, we would have fun.

And then I would take one of those games home and try to play at home, and the game just would fall flat on its face. And what I finally realized was a lot of what made some of the games fun had nothing to do with the game. The game itself sucked. It wasn't a good game. But my gaming group was a good gaming group

and that we found a way to make it fun. And that, now, a good game, a good game isn't reliant on having a group that, you know, like, I happen to have a gaming group that was good at sort of finding

whatever fun we needed to find and we generated fun. But if your game requires your players to sort of put that much effort in, you're in trouble. The game inherently

needs to be fun by itself. And later on today, we'll talk about playtesting because this is one of those attributes that you can't, I mean, with experience, you'll have some sense of what fun is. I mean, I'm not saying you can't playtest and tell whether something's fun on some level.

But on a bigger level, you need to playtest. We'll get there. But social interactions. One of the things I learned with my group is, a lot of what made the game fun was, we had fun interacting with one another, and we found a way within the game to generate that. We found a way to make it fun. And like I said, the biggest reason when I went back and looked at it was, like, we would have running jokes,

and we would just be goofing around with each other through the context of the game. And that there was a lot of dynamics that were going on that it wasn't even necessarily the game providing it. It was us enjoying games and using that as a means to bounce off one another. So that's one of the things that fun provides for your game, is it enables social interaction. It allows the people playing your game to have a chance to bond with one another.

And that good games allow you that opportunity for the interaction. So once again, one of my things I keep saying is, the qualities, there's ten different things I'm saying you need in your game, and that these things are all interlinked. So I just brought up interaction, that was number three. Interaction is important because your game is more dynamic if the different players are coming together. But why is that important?

That's important also because of the social interaction. That if I'm just playing a game and you're playing a game and we don't interact with each other, well, we're playing solitaire in the same room. We're not really playing the same game. There's some exceptions to that, I guess, but in general, one of the things you want your game to do

is you want it to force you to interact with the other players. And the interaction with other players is fun. So you see that interaction is an important component, but the interaction in your game also allows you to have the social interaction that you need, which itself is fun. So these are tied together. For example, I talk about how surprise is important. Having a sense of surprise can be fun. Not knowing something's coming and something's coming. Oh, I didn't see that coming.

That can be a very fun experience. Surprise can be very fun. Strategy, figuring things out, trying to know what's going on and then realizing that you saw something that people didn't see. That can be fun. The catch-up feature, being behind and then, Sorry, I't see. That can be fun. The catch-up feature, being behind and, sorry, I gotcha. That can be fun.

Just the flavor. We haven't got to flavor yet, but next up will be flavor. Flavor, just really getting the, ooh, I get it, I'm this, I'm a dragon, or whatever it is the flavor of your game is that you get to get in, and that can be very fun.

Whatever the hook is. We also haven't got that then. The element of that can be very fun. Whatever the hook is. We also haven't got that then. The element of that can be very fun. The goal and the rules, I guess your interaction with them can be fun. Those are less inherently fun as structural. Same with inertia. Inertia requires things to happen,

so it makes sure that fun things... It's more make sure the game progresses and the game is fun. Inertia doesn't necessarily generate the fun, but it makes sure the game progresses and the game is fun. Inertia doesn't necessarily generate the fun, but it makes sure the game stays focused to keep it fun. So all the different qualities of things the game needs, they all come together, and all of them are helping you find ways to get fun.

Okay, so another way that something is fun is what we call escapism, which is, you know what? You had a long day. It was busy. Maybe things in your life aren't going exactly the way you want or maybe things are good but today was just a hard day and I just had problems and trouble at work or something at home or whatever that one of the things that entertainment provides for you is to go,

you know what, I'm not going to think about those things that I'm thinking about all the time. They're just weighing on me. I'm going to forget about those things and do something else. So another point of entertainment that's a lot of fun is the idea of going, I am getting away from my life. I'm not worrying about the things I normally have to worry about. I'm just going to focus on this fun activity,

whether it is watching a movie or playing a game. I'm just going to do something where I don't got to think about things that I always think about. Things that weigh down on me, I'm not going to think about them. And games have a nice quality where you are making a little sort of microcosm. It's funny. There's two different ways for games to be fun. I'll talk about these together because they're connected.

One is escapism. I don't have to think about the problems I have. Woo-hoo! I'm going to not think about it. I'm going to get really into this. My focus is on this. And one of the neat things is things weigh on you over time.

Things are just, you know, you have a problem and you stay up nights thinking about it and it's in your dreams and it's always on your mind. And when you have a chance to do something where your focus is different, it's very nice.

It allows you to sort of have a moment of levity that maybe you weren't having if other things in your life are a little heavier. Now, flip side of that is you also can take obstacles that parallel your life and overcome them. So that's what I call catharsis. So catharsis is the idea that I'm having trouble dealing with something in real life. I find a parallel of it in the game that this thing I'm dealing with is with something in real life, I find a parallel of it in the game, that this thing I'm dealing with is similar in experience

to what I'm dealing with in real life, but here in the game, I'm able to do things I cannot do in real life. And the catharsis means I get to experience this feeling I need to feel not because I'm actually accomplishing the task in real life I need to accomplish, but I'm accomplishing a faux parallel task.

And one of the things that's really good about that is, let's say, for example, you are just frustrated in real life because there's something you need to accomplish, you just can't accomplish it. Just too many things are getting in your way, and it's tying you down. And then you get in the game, and you have some task that feels a similar

kind of task and you accomplish that task. You're like, aha, I did it. I did it. I did it. You really need to have that sense of

I did it, I did it, did it. It's done. It's finished. And in real life you haven't got there yet. But in the game you get to have that parallel feel

and because you have that that allows you to sort of like have this little moment that you needed in, that allows you to sort of like have this little moment that you needed in real life that you hadn't had yet. So interestingly, both escapism and anatharsis are a key part of what can make something fun, that they let you get away from your life, or they let you sort of parallel your life in a way that allows you to experience something that you really need.

Another big thing about gaming. So one of the things, we'll get to playtesting soon, but one of the big, if I had to see how well a playtest goes, there's a way that you can tell how good your playtest is where you are blindfolded. Blindfolded! And you can tell how good your test is. What is it?

Laughing. This is the next one. Humans like to laugh. Laughing is very is. What is it? Laughing. This is the next one. Humans like to laugh. Laughing is very important. Laughing is an important release. And a lot of the things I'm talking about fun tie into laughing. Laughing is just the body's way of sort of experiencing sort of joy and sort of like it's very, I mean, you, laughing isn't even controllable. It's not like you normally control the laugh. You just have this moment or moments and it comes out. And

laughing is a lot of fun. And one of the things, one of the big ways I always say, if you want to know whether your game is fun, watch, sorry, listen to playtests. Are people laughing? People laughing when they are playing your game is a really good sign. That means there's some fun baked in there. That people don't tend to laugh unless there's a fun element to it. Laughter and fun are very close together. So if people are... That doesn't mean people can't have fun in your game if they're not laughing.

That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is, if they're laughing playing your game, there's a really good chance they're having fun playing your game. Laughter is pretty intertwined with people having fun. Okay, another thing that's really important, and this is tied to catharsis, it's slightly different, is the idea of challenging oneself. So when I talk about the psychic graphics in magic, you know, Timmy, Tammy, Johnny, Jenny, Spike, I talk about sort of emotional needs that you need. And so we're tapping into some of these here. So one of the emotional needs you need is just proving something.

Look what I did. This is a very Spike thing. Look what I did. I accomplished this. And I talk about how if you go look at kids, you can see a lot of things, because kids do these things so openly and blatantly. Kids are great ways to look at psychology

because kids don't, you learn to hide things as you get older. So watching kids, you really get a sense of what people do. Just kids are more blunt about it. They don't hide it as much. So one of the things is watch a kid win a game. They throw their arms in the air,

and they run around the room, and they're really excited. When they have a little sense of victory, they're really excited. And I believe, I mean, adults will do that too, and I believe inside adults always do that to a certain extent, that there is a sense of proving yourself that's really, it is fun. It is compelling. It makes you feel good about yourself. I did this thing. This thing has been done. And that is an important part of generating fun in your game, is giving the player a chance to show what they're capable of.

I mean, Sophia has some of this also. The idea of, I'm in danger, I figure out how to get out of danger, and now I'm not in danger. That's one way to challenge yourself. And another is just, people set goals for themselves when they play. Like, one of the things that's interesting is, one of the things for replayability in your game, I talked about this in the strategy podcast, is people will set personal benchmarks. I played the game. I did something.

Next time I play the game, I want to do better than what I've done before. That part of playing a game isn't even playing against other people. It's playing against yourself. And that last time I played, here's the best I did, can I do better than the best I did, you know, and I know there's a great, like, so I think I've told the story, but like, I, at Worlds in New York, we were doing, we did this fun thing where there was a multiplayer tournament, and we all, a whole bunch of R&D people entered it. And each one of us in our deck

had a preview card from the upcoming set, which was... What set was it? It was... Morning Tide? It was Chameleon Colossus. I think it was Morning Tide. Anyway, I had Chameleon Colossus,

which was a creature that can double its own power. And so I played in a game where there were all sorts of, like, hobbling mind effects, and I was drawing a lot of cards, and there were a lot of mana production, so, like, I could... I was able to produce a huge amount of mana, and I had so many cards in my hand, and... So anyway, I ended up playing the Chameleon Colossus

and doubling it, I have no idea how many times. I had two things on that gave a lifelink to the time lifelink stacked. So I was able to attack for like 26,000 damage, gaining 55 or something, or 53,000 life.

So I, I just, I think I gained 55,000 life. So it must have been 27 or something. But anyway, I, it was a moment of great joy just because I... I've never done this much damage before.

I mean, I've done infinite damage, I guess. But just like an actual number. I actually hit somebody for that amount of damage and gained that amount of life. It was really compelling. Because there's just these great moments. So we can go from Spike into Timmy now. That there's just a great fun of just experiencing something

that you know is unique and awesome. Like, oh my God, I might never in my life do this again, but I'm doing it right now. I just did 27,000 damage and gained 55,000 life. That is quite exciting. Quite exciting, you know. So another place where fun will come from is just the sheer joy of experiencing things.

Finally, we'll get to the Johnny Jenny element of it, is that another real fun thing is doing something where people get to see you to express something. You know, one of the awesome things is finding combinations or finding some way to do something where the fun of it is people seeing that you came up with it and that you thought of it that you were creative like um there's a lot of fun in games in which you're giving clues or something you know a tabooish sort of game where you're up and you're giving clues and you just get the cleverest clue you know and not only do people get it but they're're like, wow, that was awesome. That was great.

You did a great thing. And when you have those moments where you find the little gems of things, that itself also is very fun. So all three psychographics, you know, proving yourself is fun, experiencing something is fun, expressing yourself is fun. All those are very true and a big part of fun. Another thing about challenging yourself. So there's a concept called Fiero, which is a game design term of the idea of pushing yourself to the point where you know you're in a place where you're succeeding, but at any moment you could fail. And what I mean by that is it's one thing to do something where you're confident you know what you're doing.

You know exactly what's going on. You know exactly the, like, and this is fun unto itself, I'm just a sense of dominance. Like, I know what I'm doing. I've done it before. I'm doing this. No one's going to stop me.

And that unto itself is fun. But another thing that's also fun is getting in the space where you're like, I don't know how long this can last. I'm riding on the edge. One of the things in Magic is, this just happened the other day, I'm playing a guy named James in a playtest, and at one

point the score is 27 to 1. He's got 27, I have 1. And I know, I'm on the brink of extinction. He needs to do one more damage to me. And I managed to come back and win that game and one of the great thrills of that game was, like, I knew

the tiniest mistake. I could lose it any minute. There's cards maybe he could top deck and he was just going to win. You know, I'm I'm on the verge of losing. I've won life. So many things could go wrong that all it takes is one miscalculation,

one not taking something for account, just one tiny, one tiny mistake, and I lose, you know? And the throw... I almost watched a traffic accident. Not my traffic, luckily, but... Anyway, they're safe, so no traffic accident. As we traffic, luckily. Anyway, they're safe, so no traffic accident. As we drive to work.

People, by the way, there are people to this day that think that I'm in the studio and I have little special effects or something, but I'm actually driving on the road. Some people just don't believe that I'm doing it, but I am. In fact, today, by the way, there's all this traffic, so you're getting extra extended podcast today

because of the traffic, although traffic is now going faster, so how are we doing on time? Let's see. Oh, wow. So I haven't gotten my halfway point, and we're past what I should be halfway, so you'll get some extra content today. Luckily, it's a fun topic, so we're going to go check. Anyway, back on Fiero and on the cusp. back on Fiero and on the cusp,

that there is something quite exhilarating about being close to failure, of being close to losing. This probably kind of ties into Sofia to a certain extent. And that there's this thrill of winning when you know that defeat is so close. And I know I was playing that game, this was just yesterday, where, like, at every moment, I'm so, like, I'm so, like, I know I can lose at any moment.

So I'm so careful, and I'm trying to make sure. And when I won the game, I mean, winning magic is fun. I'm not saying that winning isn't fun in general. You know, proving that you can win is fun. But there's something about when, like got to look the feet in the eye. You're like, that was so close. I'm right over here. Defeat's on your shoulder going, I was waiting.

And you manage to win the game. Just the sheer joy. I remember after we finished, I was saying to James, I go, games are fun, but the 21-to-1 game. The game where I'm in deep, deep trouble. That's just, it's fun. Those are fun games. Okay.

Another thing that's really fun, Magic happens to do this in spades, so it's pretty good, is exploration. So one of the things that's neat is you want to make sure your game has room for the players who are playing it to discover things. That one of the neat things about playing a game is game playing is an act of discovery. So to those who know my crispy hash brown theory, I explain why I think Magic is such a good game, is the idea that it keeps reinventing itself, so no matter what you do,

the crispy outer shell of the hash brown, the best part, keeps growing back. That you get to always... One of the things Magic does really well is just when you've figured things out, we change things, so you have to figure it out again. Now, not all games do that. That's something that Magic does pretty well.

But there's a sense of discovery in any game, not just Magic. Magic just has a constant sense of discovery because it keeps putting out new content. But one of the neat things is the idea of getting a game, learning a game, understanding it, and seeing what makes it tick. There is a great joy in intellectually

accomplishing something, of sort of getting a sense of where things are and how it clicks together. It makes you feel good about yourself for finding it. It makes you feel good about showing off to other people. It allows you to win, makes you feel good. It has a lot of things there. But the sense of discovery, and some of the discovery isn't even that it's going to help you win.

Some of it is just like, oh, one of the things we do all the time, and just a good point about this, is the importance of detail. And that one of the things I've learned is every detail is noticed by somebody. Every detail is not noticed by everybody, but somebody notices everything. And when you put a lot of time and energy in the details, in the small things, you can make people really happy. Because when people discover little tiny things, it really, like, there's a sense of, they talk about in art, of when you're finding beauty, I forget the word, but there's a sense of finding a piece of beauty that you know that many others haven't found, that you found sort of a private sense of beauty. And one of the examples of that,

I know, when I talk about art is, like, looking at a painting and going really into the brushstrokes and just noticing some tiny little detail that most people probably didn't notice. You got in closer and you looked at something just the way they did the grass or just some little tiny detail that the appreciation of little tiny detail brings great joy to people and that people will fall in love with the details, you know, and that's very important in love with the details. And that's very important. What makes people love something is that there's something about it that gives them a personal connection. And one of the big ways to do that is that they can latch onto something that they can call their own.

And that's super important. People want to have a personal connection with everything they're involved with. That includes your game. They want to be personally connected to your game. In order for that to be so, you need to find for them to have a way to connect with your game that something to them feels personal. That it's not like, people want to connect not in the same way that everybody else connected. They want to find their own way. Magic does this through the cards, mostly, which is, I find a pet card. This card speaks to me. It doesn't speak to everybody. It speaks to me. It's my pet card. It's my thing. People want to have a thing. Part of that is finding the details of making sure that you do the tiny little things that people can appreciate.

Because when people discover things, especially on their own, that it feels like it's a secret little thing that they found, it is really, really bonding. And it is a great joy of fun for people of finding some little pocket of things. So details matter. You know, the exploration matters. Having people be able to look and find what they need. All of that is a big part of what can make your thing fun. Okay. So, I've talked a lot about what fun is. So, let's get to, let me tell you what fun is in for a second. So, Ryan Miller is a game designer,

a very good game designer. Worked for Wizards for a long time. Unfortunately, no longer does. He went off to work somewhere else. But he gave a speech. We used to do this thing where we'd get all the game designers together once a week,

and we would take turns giving little talks about any topic. You could put anything you want. Brian Tinsman put this thing together. And this was, for those that ever heard my Dieter Rahm's 10 Rules of Design, I did a podcast on that, wrote an article on it. That was one of the talks I had given. Anyway, one of the talks that Ryan gave was called

Fun vs. Interesting. And one of the talks that Ryan gave was called Fun vs. Interesting. And one of his hypotheses was that interesting is not fun. That there's a difference between what is fun and what is interesting. Fun is an emotional response. I emotionally feel something. Interesting is an intellectual response. You know, interesting is an intellectual response. And his hypothesis, which plays, if you know anything about my whole life thesis,

what he said is that people often confuse interesting for fun. And it's not that your game shouldn't have interesting things in it. It can, but it cannot have interesting things substituting for fun things. Interesting isn't fun. And what he meant by that is a lot of times game designers will make something that is intriguing and that from a intellectual standpoint, it is very interesting, but they mistakenly say, oh, well, the joy of me finding that, the little fun of it masks the fact that that inherently unto itself isn't a fun thing, it's an interesting thing. And then when you're designing your game

you have to separate what is interesting from what is fun and do not take interesting things and count them as fun. There are a lot of games that people have designed that will look at games where you'll look at it and go, oh, well, this is a very interesting game, but it's not a fun game, and that's the problem.

If your game isn't fun, it's going to run all sorts of problems. Now, note, I'm not saying your game can't be interesting. It can. In fact, having interest in your game is good, but it shouldn't be interesting at the sake of being fun. A game that is interesting but not fun will fail. One of my truisms is if everybody likes your game but nobody loves it,

it will fail. That's tied directly to fun. That the difference between somebody liking something and somebody loving something has to do with the emotional response. Once again, I talk about this a lot. I did a whole podcast on this, which is people respond to things emotionally.

They judge things based on their emotion. The experience is an emotional experience. You have to take into account how something will emotionally affect your player. Fun is an emotion. Fun is an emotional response. I mean, it might be a sequence of emotional responses a la Aaron Hoffman, but still it is tied into emotional responses.

And that don't confuse something being interesting and being intellectually stimulating with it being emotionally stimulating. You know? And, by the way, your game can be emotionally stimulating and not be intellectually stimulating and succeed, but it is hard for your game can be emotionally stimulating and not be intellectually stimulating and succeed. But it is hard for your game to be intellectually stimulating,

not be emotionally stimulating, and get the replay value that you want. Now, once again, I'm not saying it's impossible. There are probably intellectual games that are fun to think about that aren't emotionally fulfilling, but are an interesting thing to think about. I'm not saying those don't exist. I'm not saying they can't exist.

But if you're really trying to get people to want to come back to your game, my whole hypothesis today is you need the fun thing. Fun's an emotional response. Make sure you create the fun, and don't confuse that fun with interesting. Okay. Now, how do I make sure my game is fun?

I've talked a lot of things that you can do, and like I said, there's a lot of things to make sure your game is fun. Making sure you have social interaction. Making sure that there's exploration. Making sure that there's a modularity so people have some fun trying things together. There's a lot of things you can do to build in opportunities for fun. Okay, the next question is, how do I determine if my game is fun?

Because the problem is, how do I determine if my game is fun? Because the problem is, you are biased. You, the person making the game, are biased. That doesn't mean that your bias isn't important. If the game isn't fun for you, you're sunk. If you, the inspiration, the vision of your game, do not enjoy your game, move on. Find something else. You must love what you're doing. That is not enough. You finding it fun is not enough. So, let's talk playtesting. Playtesting is a very important part of understanding if something is fun. Because the only real way for you to understand if a majority of people will find something fun

is to playtest with human beings and learn. Okay, just to recap a couple of things. Whenever I talk about playtesting, I bring up a few points, but they're so important, I will bring them up again. Number one, when you playtest, you need to playtest with people who do not have an emotional stake in how you feel. Let me explain this real quickly, which is people, when you are playtesting, if they know your game means something to you, if they have an emotional stake in your well-being,

they, even if it's the best of intentions, without a lot of training, they will soft pedal the information they're giving to you. Because you do not want to, most people have a hard time giving negative information to someone they care about. That doesn't mean

they won't try to give you information. It doesn't mean they won't give you criticism, but they tend to soft-pedal it. So what do you think of my game? Well, I really liked this quality of the game. Was it fun? It was kind of fun. By the way, if you ever ask someone it's fun and their answer isn't yes, it's not fun. Is it fun? Well, it's not fun. Is it fun? Yes, it is fun. That's how you know it's not fun. Is it fun? Well, it's not fun. Is it fun? Yes, it is fun. That's how you know it is fun. If there's any exception to

you're in trouble, it's not fun. Now that doesn't mean the game can't be made fun, but anyway, we'll get there in a sec. Okay, so you want to get some people that you are not emotionally, that don't have emotional investment in your well-being. Usually strangers are the best, but they could be acquaintances. Then you, the game designer, well, early on you'll play with them,

but later on you have to have a point where you're not interacting with them. The problem is when you teach someone a game, there's an enthusiasm that comes in when you teach someone a game, there's an enthusiasm that comes in when you teach that you could be transferring stuff to the... Meaning, in the act of trying to teach people, you could make it more fun by the energy you bring to it. Which means, by the way, if you're trying to teach someone a game, be energetic. If you want to make someone have fun, you as the person teaching the game can do that. The energy you bring when you introduce something carries on into the gameplay itself. Be energetic. If you want to make someone have fun, you as the person teaching the game can do that. The energy you bring when you introduce something carries on into the gameplay itself.

If you're like, ah, here's a game, let's play it, versus, oh, this is awesome, let's play this game. The problem is when you're a game designer, you have too much emotional investment in your game. You, whether you mean to or not, will imbue some of that in trying to teach it. So you really aren't supposed to teach your game. Now, once again, with some training, there's some ways to learn not to do that. I'm not saying game designers that don't know what they're doing can't do some of that. But like when I used to do, we used to do market testing with, what do they call it, focus groups and stuff, where we'd go with people and we would either talk to them or have them play the game.

And there's a thing where the game designer goes in to teach them the game. And you learn some tricks about teaching games when you're the game designer. An important part about it is, A, don't let the people who you're teaching know that you had anything to do with the making of the game. Second,

you have to be very straightforward. You have to sort of curb your enthusiasm. You have to sort of present the game, but don't give any subject... You have to objectively very straightforward. You have to sort of curb your enthusiasm. You have to sort of present the game, but don't give any subject... You have to objectively explain the game. Don't use any subjective terms, meaning don't talk about what the game is. Just say what the game...

I said it backwards. You need to be... No, I said it right. You need to be objective. Here's how the game is played. Here's the components of the game. Here's how you play. You have to not say things like, this game is fun.

You have to not give subjective things, because when you're trying to teach somebody, engage what they think of it, you don't want to taint the well, if you will. Generally, by the way, having someone who isn't you teaching, having someone who's less invested in the game is good. Sometimes it has to be you, because you're the only one that knows the game. Just learn when you teach that. So try to give objective things and not subjective.

And don't let them know that you're the person who designed the game. Anyway, okay, teaching the game. How do you tell if it's fun? Number one, I said before, listen. Laughing, a very good sign. Number two, watch. Watch how people interact. When people are having fun,

I mean, you know human nature. I believe if you watch a film with the sound turned off, you can tell when people are having fun. There's just body language. There's things people do. Laughing is the easiest thing. There's a looseness people have when they're having fun, that they let their guard down,

that they're not as tensed up. Just watch people play your game. Listen to them and watch them. And then, this is an important thing, when they're done, say to them, was this game fun? And I'm not exaggerating here. If they don't enthusiastically say yes,

if they have to think for a minute, is it fun? Hmm, was it fun? No, it wasn't as fun as it needs to be. Like, one of the things we would do that I learned a lot is you would do focus groups, and you would do focus groups,

and at the end of it, you know, people would have, you know, generally have a good time, but you would walk out and go, wow, we need to work on the game. They weren't super enthusiastic. They merely thought it was good. They didn't think it was great.

And if you want to succeed, good isn't good enough. You need great. You need, like, one of the big tests about when in playtesting, one of the questions you ask to see whether you have a successful game or not is you say to the person, would you buy this game? If I would sell you this game right now, would you take money out of, would you buy this game? If I would sell you this game right now, would you take money out of your pocket and buy this game? If the answer isn't yes, your game needs more work. That you want to play a game where your person who plays the game goes, I want

to buy it right now. Can I buy it? In fact, one of the best things is when you play a game and they say to you, can I buy this game? Unprompted. Not even, would you buy this game? You don't even ask them. They say, I'd like to buy this game. That is an awesome, awesome, awesome sign. That's when you know we're going to have a hit. When people are like, this was... They'll say it is fun and they'll want to buy it. Those are the big things. So when you're playtesting,

it's very, very important to gauge how people think and talk to people. One of the things I think some people do when they do testing is they just don't talk to people enough. Now, people don't always understand everything. People don't know necessarily why something was fun, but they know whether it was fun.

And that's an important part of criticism, by the way. People know how they feel. People know whether or not they were enjoying themselves. People know whether or not... People know their response to, people know the, people know their response to something. They might not know why. So when people dislike something, you got to listen.

They dislike it. Something about what's going on makes them unhappy. The unhappiness is real. They can sense it. They know it. Now, what makes them unhappy? They might not know. That people can give advice.

And the key about advice is, always listen to how things make people feel, but take with a grain of salt necessarily always what's causing it. Because people might be unhappy with a game, and they might pick the thing they think is making them unhappy. Now, I'm not saying don't listen to that, sometimes they're right, but sometimes

it's like, well, I was unhappy and change this. Often, I'm unhappy, that's a real truism, and, I was unhappy and change this. Often, I'm unhappy, that's a real truism, and what made them unhappy, that's a truism, but how to fix it, how they will fix it, isn't always actually the correct answer on how to fix it. Anyway, I'm almost to work.

How much time are we doing today? We have a lot of traffic, so you guys had an extra long podcast. Well, luckily, today's topic was fun. Literally fun. Fun to talk about and itself is fun. So I need a recap since we're almost back. So remember, when you are building your game, entertainment is one of the most important,

if not the most important quality of your game. If people do not love your game and enjoy playing your game, they will not keep playing it. If you want your game to be playable, you need to do that. Fun is the number one way to make things entertaining. It's not the only way. There are some other ways. I'm not saying that fun is the only thing you need to worry about. But fun is a very important thing. Your game needs to be fun. How do I do that?

Well, there's a whole bunch of different ways you can do that. You can make sure that there's a built-in way to get social interaction. You can build the means by which people can have escapism. You can build in elements for catharsis. You can make sure there's things built in your game that get people laughing. You want your game to create interaction. You can create surprise and strategy. Have a catch-up feature, flavor hook. All the other components I'm talking You want your game to create interaction. You can create surprise and strategy. Have a catch-up feature, flavor hook. All the other

components I'm talking about for your game. Those will all help. You want to make sure people can challenge themselves. That they can get on the edge. You want to make sure that people can get themselves in a bad place and get themselves out of a bad place. You know, don't worry about your game necessarily generating negative emotions as long as

it gives them the tools to move from the negative place to the positive place. You want exploration in your game. You want a sense of discovery. You want people to find things. You want a modularity so that people can click things together. You want little details that people can discover

to bring and make their own. You want that small piece of art that people can reclaim and make personal. You want to give opportunities for people to have experiences, to notice things, to prove themselves, to express themselves. You want to have obstacles they can overcome. You want to have skills that they can test. You want to have all these different things in your game. You want to figure out all the different components.

And then, once you think you have it, playtest, playtest, playtest, playtest, playtest. There is no way to truly determine if your game is fun without playing it. And by the way, I talked about you watching other people. One thing I should also bring up, you need to playtest. You and your design team, whoever's working on it, you need to playtest. Before other people playtest, you should playtest. It needs to be fun for you and your design team, whoever's working on it, you need a play test. Before other people play a test, you should play a test. It needs to be fun for you and your team. If you and your

team, if you ask you and your team is this game fun, and you can't give an emphatic yes, you're in trouble. You need to keep working. Now, be aware, in design, the game will not always be fun. One of the things people talk about, how much fun it is. I get to play Magic all the time. Yes, but not all my Magic games are fun.

I play a lot of unfun Magic, so you don't have to. Part of the design process is its work. And you are going to play a lot of unfun versions of things to find the fun. That's the one final concept I'll talk about since I'm almost to work, is finding the fun. It's a term I use. What that means is, metaphorically, imagine that you are a metal detector, except you're looking for fun. It's a term I use. What that means is metaphorically imagine that you are a metal detector except you're looking for fun.

One of the things you have to train yourself is you have to figure out when there's an inkling of fun in something. A lot of early playtesting is playtesting things and say this one component, there's something about it. A lot of times it's not that the thing

is maximized for fun it just has potential for fun and you have to early on go okay I play tested I tried these different things these three things I see some fun in them how can we take these components

and bring out the fun more or do more of what they're doing you know a lot of early play testing in Magic is I'll play a card and go this this card is a lot of fun. Let's make more cards like this card. This card is a lot of fun.

And so it is your job as a game designer to find the fun. You have to figure out what is fun, figure out what part of your game, and then replicate it. Make the thing that's fun more fun. Make more things that are that kind of fun. You know, make the thing that's fun more fun. Make more things that are that kind of fun. That you really need to figure out how to find that. And that

is your job. A lot of today's thing is all about that the, when somebody sits down to play your game, there are certain expectations. And I've talked about this in other podcasts, but this is important. That there's a trust between a game player and a game designer,

and that they assume that you have done your job, and that all the things that the game should have, that it should have. And they're going to do what you instruct them to do, and they're hopefully going to have a wonderful time. Well, one big part of the things is fun, that their expectation is that this is a fun thing, this game will be fun, the person who that this is a fun thing. This game will be fun. The person who made this game built fun into it

and I will, with all my enthusiasm, find the fun and have the fun. And you as a game designer need to pack your game with lots of... It's not necessarily that your game has fun as much as it has lots of potentials for people to find their own fun. That's the

subject. What makes things fun? A lot of what I'm explaining today is there's so many different find their own fun. That's the subject. What makes things fun? A lot of what I'm explaining today is, there's so many different ways to have fun. It's not that your game in one way has fun. You have to create lots of different abilities and different means built into your game so that each individual player finds their own fun. And that's the big thing of what you're doing.

But anyway, it was fun talking about fun, but I'm in my parking space, so we all know what that means. It means at the end of my drive to work. So instead of out talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So thanks for joining me, guys.