Find of the Day - Broederbund: What makes a good game?

Brenda Romero tweeted the Author's Guidelines by Brøderbund Software from 1984:

What makes a good game?

It's no secret what makes a game stand out as a winner.

Here are some of the key elements we consider when adding a new game to our line:

1. The game should have increasing levels of difficulty.
2. There should be plateaus for the player to reach, each with a qualitative difference, new elements brought into the play, new 'twists' and challenges.
3. When a player suffers a defeat, it should be due to his own actions. Never escalate the difficulty simply by programming in random events a person can't respond to.
4. The game should project a"personality". A good way to do this is to work with identifiable objects rather than abstract shapes.
5. The game should maintain a consistent point of view. Events and displays should add to the sense of reality, not confuse it.
6. The game should make full use of the specific computer's technical capabilities - sound color and graphics.
7. Most important of all, the game should be original, unlike anything else on the market.

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More information.

Not exactly news, but this list is great and still up-to-date and relevant.

I agree. It's like an "evergreen".

Good list, although to me a game doesn't exactly have to be that original to be entertaining. Sometimes more of the same actually works too, with minor adjustments.

Agreed. Originality is needed, when a designer doesn't have the finesse to come up with an absolutely fun new Tetris that turns out selling well.

Back in the 80's designers did original all the time. New genres left, right and center. The ballpark is still wide open - there is still so much untapped potential. The difference is that the low hanging fruit has already been taken.

Most games today feature iterative improvements but can prove boring if you've thoroughly played through the last entry. Civilization as a series has a good template of changing about a third, keeping a third and iterating on the rest.

In terms of personality this is where a lot of modern games fail because they have a designed by committee feel where the programmers and the artists don't really talk to each other. Too many people working on these big games makes it hard I guess.

In the 80s the costs of developing a new game were much lower. So the risk to make something original and new was lower, too.

Many of the big projects nowadays just try to play safe.

The innovative side of game development are now the indie developers - they sometimes try new game concepts and mix things up.

Civilization is a brilliant example of a series well cared for. I've played all the iterations since the first (Civilization actually being my first major time sink PC game!). And they've had enough sense to not change too much between the games, just enough to make it interesting. The sport games (Lika FIFA) are another example, they're pretty much the only thing EA does right in my book.

But original to me means more than just expanding and improving, it means you have to have something completely new or reworked. And while completely new can be fun for a little while, in many cases it's a step in the wrong direction (XCOM's battle system compared to the originals…).

6. The game should make full use of the specific computer's technical capabilities - sound color and graphics.

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I would have agreed to this in '84, but 30 years later players have developed a sense of nostalgia and we see a lot of retro/2D/pixel art titles which are often great games while not utilizing full potential of the computer.

"There should be plateaus for the player to reach, each with a qualitative difference, new elements brought into the play, new 'twists' and challenges."

Definately this - I get quickly bored with action games (and movies, books...) that are continually frenetic - like out of the fying pan, into the fire, into the frying pan again... Rather games should be structured like walking up a series of waterfalls with calm at the top of each one, where you can consolidate your gains and relax a bit, before the tension starts building again with a new twist. And in the best games you also have an overall plot or goal that builds it's own tension and resolution over the top of the minor themes - a bit like how a classical symphony is structured.

Roq said:

Definately this - I get quickly bored with action games (and movies, books…) that are continually frenetic - like out of the fying pan, into the fire, into the frying pan again…

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Or, as I'd put it :

"Oh, my just another fight ? Does this never end ???"

And that's why I can't stand RTS anymore, neither Action-RPGS. They are so much tunnel-visioned on one aspecxt, and that's to battle.

2. There should be plateaus for the player to reach, each with a qualitative difference, new elements brought into the play, new 'twists' and challenges.

A lot of games fail this metric because they front load the challenge at the start and ignore the progression curve. Even games like Divinity Original Sin whose late game failed to introduce new challenge and had grind instead in the form of enemies with lots of hit points.

I'm sure the EE will fix the late game problem however due to the introduction of master skills, better ai and a reduction in enemy health point bloat.