I am Paul Kim and I have been trying to figure out why I like games for my entire life. This exercise will cover videogames, but my gaming profile very much starts from the first time I played tag, soccer, or even rock-paper-scissors, to the current modern games of the 21st century. By acknowledging that our concept of gaming and fun is stems from everything we have played in our past including those pre-electronic games, we may better understand what makes our audience tic. I usually have strong opinions about what I think about a game, but that does not mean what think is correct; this is just my personal gaming profile.
I find it surprising how much the games I find fun or interesting are not the games I play the most often or most frequently. By and far the game I have invested the most time in is League of Legends, the MOBA that everybody in class and their mother knows about, but it is not a game that I wholeheartedly enjoy, or even a game I find conducive to breaking down what aspects of it are fun. On one hand, there are an incredible number of things about LoL’s (League of Legends) design that are practically genius, but just as many things, if not more, that are terrible about it; however this may be better for another discussion. The games I find interesting and fun are games I can think back and honestly say (introspecting in action) that, in general, the elements that make up the game are indeed what makes that game fun, and when I play those games again, they will still be fun.
The first “genre” I want to tackle is action-platformer-puzzle-adventure. This is what some may call the indie genre (joking) or maybe a “metroidvania” in some cases, but in all honesty a lot of independent games have made themselves home in this genre. As it says on the tin, this genre is a conglomerate of each of the separate genres, more than often incorporating specific aspects instead of making the entire game have all those aspects at all times. Both the games I’ve picked are independent games and are games I find enjoyable for their ingenuity and their homages in the genre. One is Valdis Story: Abyssal City. This game plays looks like an RPG but is very much a combat-focused beat’em-up. It’s not without it’s flaws, but since it’s focus on combat makes practicing and learning and getting better enjoyable, the game becomes a little bit like a show-off system where you try to get the biggest combo before you kill an enemy or boss. It’s in-depth combat system makes it rewarding, but the ease of playing by both the accessibility of commands and weapons makes this game worth playing. The other game is Teslagrad, a game much more focused on puzzle solving than skill. What makes this game interesting is it’s ability to make the player want to go where the game wants you to go, making the player feel like he’s naturally solving each puzzle much like a classic Zelda game. The game also rewards exploration with narrative and collectables, making you want to explore every inch of the map, even places you thought did not exist.
The second genre would be the fighting game genre. No other genre has affected my gaming profile as much as this one. The main reason being Street Fighter (all of them) and Super Smash Bros (also all of them). Street Fighter is what I would call action-chess. The two biggest reasons why I like Street Fighter is its ability to allow the player to express his own style of play through extensive knowledge and skill, your character becomes an extension of you. The other is the games setting a clear set of rules and mechanics that becomes truly rewarding if learned, knowing that something some player did was foolish, an experienced player will know exactly how to punish the foolish tactic. Super Smash Bros on the other hand follows quite a different paradigm. If you know how to use a controller you know how to play Smash. Its accessibility by it’s ease of play becomes it’s biggest forte, but deep down inside there is a meta-game that can be reached through practice and knowledge. Both these games are incredible in allowing the player to fully exploit the mechanics in order to play as best as possible, but Smash focuses on an easier experience which is just as important to a game.
The third genre is much like the first in it’s frankenstyle of elements. This is the MMORPG, a almost non-genre defined literally by the number of players and another genre that has a hard time defining itself. The two I will focus on both have something in common, it’s focus on boss-killing. One is Monster Hunter Tri, a game that makes the player learn everything there is to know about what monster they are killing from its sleep pattern to what ooze it sprays when felled. Both this monster-learning aspect and it’s strategy-focused combat makes this make a unique experience. For each monster you and your party will have to make a plan to kill a monster in a specific way, or else, hard times are ahead. This sort of planning-stalking-fighting design makes the game something I come back to time and time again. The other MMORPG I enjoy is Vindictus for no other reason than boss-killing, in fact, most other aspects of this game are insufferable, something that is just as important to note in experiences in order to analyze and improve on; however, the boss-focused combat in this game is unparalleled in my opinion. Although Vindictus and Monster Hunter share the same aspect of learning what a boss does, Vindictus gives you the mobility and attack-abilities to essentially make you feel like a rampaging master at killing bosses. In the same way Valdis Story rewards killing things while looking cool, the best moments in Vindictus are acheived by using your abilities to the fullest to down a boss without getting touched once. Both the struggle of fighting a boss with the tools to take it down mercilessly are aspects that I would want to see incorporated in other games (actually there is one: Dark Souls, et. al).
While this was not the most in-depth descriptions of mechanics and design in these games that I find enjoyable, this will be good to reflect on in the future when thinking about what I think other people may find enjoyable.