Concept of fun

Fun... what is it?

No, really. What makes people play some games for hours whilst others they just ignore?

Why do people like pushing over barrels the first time physics is enabled?

What makes destructible walls in Red Faction so much fun?

What makes shooting a demon in the FACE on Doom so exhilarating?

I'll tell you why I think it is. It's a combination of fresh ideas and inspiration. All games have a shotgun now, but very few feel satisfying because they're too interested in making it look and sound right, yet it doesn't FEEL right. Shotguns can be so much more than a 'Spray weapon which sucks at long range'. Take Half Life 2's, for example. Multiple fire modes always help, as does a nice simple and flexible reloading system. The main selling point with it is that you can kill things at a relatively long range! (This is apparently realistic, though most games omit it because it makes them unfairly powerful).

I made a game once where every one of the 10 weapons available had two different fire modes which could be used in combo for different attacks which I hadn't even thought I had programmed in. For instance- fire 1 caused an electrical spark to fire out in front of you, whilst Fire 2 attracted it back to you. I found out that you could keep firing, then dragging them back to you before releasing it in a massive explosion of DEATH. I could also get it to come back to me whilst I spun around, creating a force field which protected me from enemy projectiles. There was something fun from building up a massive charge then walking into a near by enemy, too. All of that from two different fire modes. Now THAT's gameplay.

Oooh, look at me, blabbering on and on and on. If you're still reading this, well done. I can't quite describe what I mean but hopefully these examples have helped you to get into the right frame of mind. A perfectly balanced, playtested game won't have as many of these interesting little perks because they'd be classed as overpowered or that they disrupt the gameplay. I'd say that the point of games is to do just that!

What's more fun? Shooting everybody in a room for the 100th time or by finding your way up onto a ledge the game designers didn't expect you to find? Would you rather have loads of weapons of equal effectiveness or one or two which consume the game and are loads of fun to use? Think light sabres on Jedi Knight. Why use anything else? The Gravity Gun could be considered the same.

What do I suggest for Click games? STOP doing what everybody else does, stop making basic platformers. Make ones where you can climb up walls, set fire to places and cause massive car crashes. Add large areas with no real point other than serving as a sandbox for additional mayhem.

Stop thinking in terms of rooms, levels and boxes.

Think outside the box.