General Gaming Games where the best way to play is also the most fun way to play

[ShreddieMercury]

For as long as I've played games, I would think that I'd be better at interpreting how games want to be played.  I find that it can take me time to click with certain games, because I don't always give myself over to their mechanics.  Jedi Survivor is a recent example - I tried to force my own ideas about how to handle the combat, and I really wasn't vibing with it.  Once I tried to approach the game on its own terms, I started having a much better time.  But is the game's specific approach more fun?

 

I think this is an interesting and underrated aspect of game design in general.  Is the best or most optimal way to play a game also the most fun way to play it?  This question might not really make sense for games with lots of choices or player flexibility, although ideally all options should be engaging and fun.  But in games that have a more specific or narrow design ethos, I feel that the most fun type of play should be encouraged and reinforced.

 

An example from my experience would be NiGHTS into Dreams.  It's possible to play the game and miss 80% of what makes it fun, which is maximizing your time and movement to get a better rank.  It's very obtuse and doesn't explain itself properly, but once you understand how it wants to be played, it becomes an entirely different and mesmerizing experience.  Do you have examples where maximizing a game's mechanics is the most fun option?  Also, apologies if I am not articulating this correctly

[Xbob42]

That's a tough one, because what's most fun to me might not be to someone else. For example, I like all my platformers to be as high speed as possible, no slowing down. Someone else might enjoy exploring the stage to their fullest.

 

One example to me is I think RPGs with choices are more fun if you don't save scum and live with your decisions and mistakes. It's certainly more optimal to keep reloading a save to get your exact result, but to me that's insanely boring and everyone ends up with the same cookie cutter experience. Of course, with some games locking you out of swaths of content for mistakes (and usually not opening up different swaths of content when mistakes are made) that can be irritating.

 

I'll have to think about this a bit more to give more specific examples.

[crispy4000]

26 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

Do you have examples where maximizing a game's mechanics is the most fun option?

 

I can think of several games with exploits that function this way.  Muta stacking in Starcraft 1.  Snaking in Mario Kart DS.  Wavedashing in Smash Bros Melee.  Combos in Street Fighter 2.  Most recently, a bunch of unintended uses for particular items in Tears of the Kingdom (see: elevator rail).

 

A vocal group of gamers will always complain about them not being played as intended, especially the multiplayer ones.  In the best of cases, maximization exploits can actually address balance issues and genuinely make them more fun to play.  The only downside then is no in-game tutorial, and a steeper learning curve typically.

 

I just booted up Mario Kart DS yesterday to reconfigure some overlays/shaders in Retroarch.  It feels so bad just to go straight.  Snaking takes it from a decent game to a great one.  Pushing the mechanics to fit in that one extra boost is the most fun part of it.  I don't even think 8 recaptures the fun of it entirely.

[ShreddieMercury]

16 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I can think of several games with exploits that function this way.  Muta stacking in Starcraft 1.  Snaking in Mario Kart DS.  Wavedashing in Smash Bros Melee.  Combos in Street Fighter 2.  Most recently, a bunch of unintended uses for particular items in Tears of the Kingdom (see: elevator rail).

 

A vocal group of gamers will always complain about them not being played as intended, especially the multiplayer ones.  In the best of cases, maximization exploits can actually address balance issues and genuinely make them more fun to play.  The only downside then is no in-game tutorial, and a steeper learning curve typically.

 

I just booted up Mario Kart DS yesterday to reconfigure some overlays/shaders in Retroarch.  It feels so bad just to go straight.  Snaking takes it from a decent game to a great one.  Pushing the mechanics to fit in that one extra boost is the most fun part of it.  I don't even think 8 recaptures the fun of it entirely.

 

Great examples, but I wasn't referring to exploits necessarily.  I'm not certain about this, but snaking in MK doesn't seem to have been intentionally implemented.  Is that communicated anywhere to the player? 

 

I'm more thinking about where the standard game design itself reinforces the best way to play because it's the most fun.  I would say in general that if exploits make a game more fun, then that's a flaw in the overall design that should have been addressed.  Opinions vary on that I'm sure, but I appreciate when a developer clearly knows all the angles, and encourages an intended type of play.

 

I know it's a weird question.  It's something that I've been thinking a lot about when I play games recently.

[TwinIon]

I think the recent Doom and Doom Eternal fit the bill here. The game heavily reinforces a fast paced, in your face style of gameplay that is fun and rewarding. I'm often the player to sit back and play sniper while I meticulously make my way through a level, but Doom pushed back against those instincts with gameplay mechanics and I'm sure I had a better time with the game because of those design choices.

 

Another example that comes to mind is Tribes 2, though you could argue it's similar to many other team based multiplayer games from Halo to Battlefield. For those unfamiliar, Tribes 2 had enormous maps and huge player counts (128 in 2001!). The game was very much designed to encourage team play, with large vehicles best utilized by many players at the same time. The reason that I feel like Tribes comes to mind more than the others is just how much it rewarded team play and how much it punished individuals. The huge empty maps were killing grounds for lone soldiers. The steep hills and deep valleys would take forever to cross, it was easy to get turned around, and with huge numbers of players, going it alone was typically a recipe for complete ineffectiveness. While most team based multiplayer games encourage teamwork with efficiency, like with Battlefield's squad spawns, I often felt like Tribes required it.

[skillzdadirecta]

Personally, I've always found that you can appreciate a game and what it's trying to do if you approach it the way it's intended to be played and not how you think it should be played. That's going to almost always lead to frustration unless the game is DESIGNED to be played in a variety of ways. Take Jedi Survivor as you described in your original post. I'm playing it now and I'm pretty close to the end and right now? It's my GOTY (I don't expect that to last but it's will probably be top 3 or top 5) because the game is very successful in what it's TRYING to do which is make you feel like a Jedi in a Star Wars setting. Yes, it is a "Souls-Lite" but it's a Star Wars game FIRST and you feel like a Jedi playing it rather than some generic action game character which is what the designers intended I'm sure. This may be off putting for some gamers who want to play it more like a traditional Souls game where you block attacks and look for openings, but that's not how the game is designed to be played. I remember there were similar complaints about The Witcher 3's combat which is similar to the combat to the Jedi games in my opinion. In fact I remember at the time thinking that at least MY Geralt build in Witcher 3 was basically a medieval Jedi. So yeah, I think with most games, if you approach them on their terms you can find the fun in them and if not and the game doesn't allow for different styles of play, then that game just probably isn't for you. And that's ok too.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Let’s see. Elden Ring; being offline and using Spirit Ashes. Best and most fun way to play. 
 

 

There are some mods that some consider crucial to a game’s experience. Such is the case with KOTOR 2. Doom 3 had the duct tape mod. 
 

I do think there are a not so insignificant number of games where mastering the controls and mechanics make for a more fun experience, but you can easily muddle your way through the game with a basic and rudimentary style of play. Sometimes it’s mastering advanced combat. Sometimes it taking the time to learn how to put together strong builds.
 

then there are games that are plenty playable solo, but feel like they were intended for coop and are vastly more fun with coop.  

[skillzdadirecta]

Sekiro is the perfect example of a game being designed a certain way and being fun when you master its mechanics. I made the mistake when I first played it of trying to take skills from other games and bring them to this one at first and it just didn't work. Once I mastered the actual gameplay that the game spends the early hours teaching you, the game clicked and it became one of my favorite and most rewarding game experiences ever. That's why I think most people check out at Genichiro... if you haven't mastered parrying by the time you fight him, you're not going to get far in the rest of the game.

[crispy4000]

Skyward Sword is another example.  Its not hard by any means, but you're not going to flail around mindlessly and have fun.  You have to learn to swipe as it wants you to.

[ShreddieMercury]

2 hours ago, TwinIon said:

I think the recent Doom and Doom Eternal fit the bill here. The game heavily reinforces a fast paced, in your face style of gameplay that is fun and rewarding. I'm often the player to sit back and play sniper while I meticulously make my way through a level, but Doom pushed back against those instincts with gameplay mechanics and I'm sure I had a better time with the game because of those design choices.

 

 

Doom Eternal in particular is an excellent example.  That game has a hyper specific way that it wants to be played, and if you click with it, it's quite incredible.  I found it to be just a bit too bloated mechanics-wise; if the flamethrower or grenade or just one thing could be dropped, I think it would sit amont the best FPS of all time.  As it stands for me, it's just a bit too fiddly.  But this is exactly what I'm getting at.

[Remarkableriots]

Ghostbusters: The Video Game, because you won't get far if you aren't busting ghosts! 

[legend]

Systems driven games are almost always an instant win in this regard, because they're designed for you think out side the box. E.g, Divinity Original Sin 2, TotK, Myth 1/2.

 

Outside of those, I'll also give the nod to Halo, Doom 2016/Eternal, Vampire Survivors (just obliterate the world), Hollow Knight, and probably a bunch of others I'm not thinking of now.

[Remarkableriots]

39 minutes ago, legend said:

Systems driven games are almost always an instant win in this regard, because they're designed for you think out side the box. E.g, Divinity Original Sin 2, TotK, Myth 1/2.

 

Outside of those, I'll also give the nod to Halo, Doom 2016/Eternal, Vampire Survivors (just obliterate the world), Hollow Knight, and probably a bunch of others I'm not thinking of now.

I need to play Divinity Original Sin 2 sometime soon.

[legend]

10 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

I need to play Divinity Original Sin 2 sometime soon.

 

It's a long game, so you might want to wait till after BG3!