What is Game Play?

[BreakABone]

Just something I've been pondering.. for the last 2 minutes, but we always tell friends that a game has good or bad game play, but what does that really mean?

I mean how do you describe game play? What is it to you?

[Teuthida]

The core of a game. What makes it fun. Strip away all your fancy graphics, atmosphere, story, whathaveyou. If it's still fun when the characters are grey cubes in a nondescript world, that's good game play.

[Professor S]

Its what Too Human didn't have...

[KillerGremlin]

I feel like this is a cutting-edge philosophy question, like back when the first philosophers dicked about "what is art."

For me, game play is that "thing" that takes something from being a video, picture, art, task, whatever, and brings in some interactive component that includes things like challenge, accomplishment, reward, success, failure, competition, etc.

The most popular games (SEE: NOT VIDEO GAMES) are built on fairly simple game play with basic things like winning/losing, risk/reward, competition.

Looking at a picture is not a game. Looking at a picture with a friend and seeing who can find something first is. Especially if there is pie at the end. Seriously, fuck all you cake-eating pie haters.

[Combine 017]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Its what Too Human didn't have...

Bam!

[Angrist]

Now let's see if I can come up with some categories...

A. Control. How do you steer your character/car/environment? Is it responsive, is it stiff? How many buttons do you need? Frustrating or fun?
B. Possibilities. How many stuff is there to do? Does it get repetitive fast, or does it entertain you for a long time?
C. Rewards. Why would you do the stuff you can do, what's the payback?

Let's take Super Mario Galaxy 2 as a good example.
Controls are simple and tight.
There are a lot of possibilities and different playstyles.
You get to see a new pretty world if you complete the level. You also progress through the story (but it was way to complicated for me personally).

Disaster: Day of Crisis (the Wii game you never got in America) as a bad example.
Controls are sloppy and annoying.
Not much to do, very little action going on.
The rewards were way too slow and small.

Want to add a category?

[Teuthida]

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

Looking at a picture is not a game. Looking at a picture with a friend and seeing who can find something first is. Especially if there is pie at the end. Seriously, fuck all you cake-eating pie haters.

I don't think I would have gotten very far in Portal if I was promised pie at the end. Pies are for charts, not eating.

[Professor S]

Pie is a distillation of the best parts of cake. Cake is beer, pie is whiskey. Cake is wine, pie is cognac. Cake is the beginning of something wonderful. Pie is simply wonderful.

/debate

[Teuthida]

The thing is, cake is always good. Pie is grab bag. If someone offers you pie there's a very good chance it won't be to your liking. And say you bite into a pie expecting it to be strawberry and turns out to be meat. You can eat cake without fear.

Yay for derailing thread.

[Professor S]

Sir, your definition of "good" is troubling at best. Cake is never "good", it is edible and sweet. If given the choice of cake, pie, or any other desert, the correct answer is pie or any other desert. Cake is eaten because cake is better than no cake, just as having an old Yugo is better than having no car. Given the choice, you would take a better car, but you due to poor live choices you are left with cake. Ergo, cake is for losers.

And derailing threads is fun.

[Professor S]

Sir, your definition of "good" is troubling at best. Cake is never "good", it is edible and sweet. If given the choice of cake, pie, or any other desert, the correct answer is pie or any other desert. Cake is eaten because cake is better than no cake, just as having an old Yugo is better than having no car. Given the choice, you would take a better car, but you due to poor life choices you are left with cake. Ergo, cake is for losers.

And derailing threads is fun.

[Vampyr]

I like cake.

[TheSlyMoogle]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

The thing is, cake is always good. Pie is grab bag. If someone offers you pie there's a very good chance it won't be to your liking. And say you bite into a pie expecting it to be strawberry and turns out to be meat. You can eat cake without fear.

Yay for derailing thread.

That's bogus. I've had some terrible cakes. In fact I've had so many terrible cakes that I no longer eat cake, ever. If someone is like "Hey dessert time!"

and I'm like "Oh hey what did you make?!" and they're like "OMG CAKE!!!"

I'm like "Oh... Really? Sounds awesome but... I'm super stuffed and can't eat another bite. Maybe we can have cake later?!"

Really though, I'm just not going to eat that cake. It's cake and that's disgusting.

I mean really, the only thing cake has over Pie is that you can't do this with Pie:



However you will never get this out of a cake:



Just look at that fucking perfection. It will taste so good too. Mmm... Pie.

[Teuthida]

What sort of fool would prefer a dessert that can't be molded into the Millennium Falcon? A bakery lives or dies on their sale of starship shaped treats. The Queen of England eats a cake in the shape of the Starship Enterprize every single night as Patrick Stewart seductively reads off the ingredient list until she reaches orgasm.

[Angrist]

The gameplay of derailing a thread is simple, diverse and very rewarding.
Sorry, off-topic. Go on.