Digital Dave

I’ve finally isolated a new idea worth pursuing. Megan approached me a few weeks ago with a idea revolving around a big theme on the app store right now – how far can you go? I liked the theme a lot but had a hard time pulling out interesting gameplay mechanics. I do not want to just simply create a Doodle Jump or Canabalt. I also do not want to create a shallow game. I’ve learned quite a bit through my last three projects that have given me insight that I can pull from. I feel like I have a fun design that should finally introduce some depth which I’ve neglected to implement far too much in the past. We’ll see once that early playtest session hits.

For far too long I’ve neglected ‘What makes this game good, even great?’ Normally when I play video games I don’t sit and analyze them as I play. I play them for what they are and I either enjoy the experience or I become bored and quit. I don’t moan, cry or berate the developers. I don’t sit and say, “I love this because I’m doing x, y and z!” If I become bored and quit I rarely ever touch it again. If I really enjoy the experience I might play a few more sessions over a week or two and then drop it. It is a rare case that I play a game for any serious amount of time – only a couple of MMOs (not these days, sadly) and Starcraft 2 fall into that category.

Needless to say, in the past few months I have been paying more attention to the games I’ve played.

Most recent example, Velocispider. I played this over and over because it feels smooth, the weapons are really cool, the creatures various are interesting, the graphics are easy on the eyes and I am a pretty competitive person. This game lasted a week! I don’t play it much any longer mainly because I hit a high score wall where I found it too tough to get past (after 4-5 plays of failing at the same high score spot).

The other day I came across an article, What Makes Games Good, which is an outstanding read.