Game Fun

Source

After going through this week's readings, I learned more about different types of fun and different types of players. The article goes into a lot more of details about "fun" than the MDA Framework which we read for one of the previous weeks.

Starting off, this piece goes through the standard 8 "funs". The Sensation, Fantasy, Narrative, Challenge, Fellowship, Discovery, Expression and Submission are the main ones, but, as the author said, the list isn't completed and there is so much more going into it. The other four types found in games are: 

Collection. This is the “gathering” part of hunting-and-gathering, so you would expect it to be fun. In many board games you collect resources or tokens. Trading Card Game players collect cards. 

Spatial Reasoning. Primitive humans needed to figure out spatial relationships in order to build useful tools (for example, if you want to find a big stick to make a crude ladder or bridge, you need to be able to estimate length; if you want to stick two pieces of wood together, you need to be able to figure out how to make them fit). Many games make use of spatial relationships, from Tetris to Pente.

Advancement. The skill of learning new skills, which is obviously useful to a primitive human that needs to learn a lot of skills. We see this formalized in games all the time, from the overt Experience Points and Levels to finding new items or buying new weapons that give us better stats or new capabilities.

Finding Shortcuts. Finding novel, undiscovered ways to work around problems in ways that take less effort than normal helped primitive humans to conserve their energy; in that sense, laziness can be a virtue. Ironically, in games, this often takes the form of deliberate rule-breaking and cheating.

Griefing. Like other forms of competition, putting other people down is a way to show dominance and superiority over your peers. 

Sadly, you can't just create a game which contains all the types of funs and hope it will work, because they all work in a combination with each other, so its something that a game developer needs to be mindful of. 

Another thing that the article mentions is the types of players. Achievers, Explorers, Socializers and Killers.