What is Game Play?

[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?