Feedback and Fun

Over the long Memorial Day weekend, I was blessed with an opportunity to hang out with relatives I don’t often see, visit a bunch of touristy hot spots with them, and relax in a sizable hotel pool.

In preparation for said pool time, we picked up a $3 “jumbo beach ball” from the K-Mart across the street. I didn’t realize just how “jumbo” it truly was until my brother-in-law huffed and puffed himself into a light-headed stupor inflating the thing. The ball was large enough to comfortably fit three kindergartners inside it (though I don’t know how you’d get them through the air hole), and was by far the biggest toy in the hotel pool.

When you’ve got a toy that big, you can’t just keep it for yourself. If it takes up as much space in the pool as any three swimmers, you’ve got to share it with the rest of the pool people. And so we turned half the pool into an impromptu game of “hit the ball towards someone,” and everyone who played enjoyed it.

Was it a proper game, with victory conditions and everything? No, of course not. But was it fun? Yes, yes it was.

As a game designer, I often obsess over fun. A game can be clever, interesting, or even challenging without actually being fun.

Leaving the pool, I wondered what it was about hitting the ball around with a bunch of strangers that made it so much fun. I realized it was the surprising feedback.

Feedback is Tasty!

I’d hit the ball towards some watery tourist. Would he hit it back? If so, would he smack it up in the air like a volleyball? Or skim it across the water at my nephew? No, it didn’t matter for the sake of winning the game, but how I would react was based on how this stranger would react. But I was doing something, and waiting for the feedback without knowing exactly what it would be. And that moment of feedback — when the stranger grabbed the ball and tossed it playfully to the deep end — that was fun.

This reminded me of some (okay, most) Facebook games I’ve played in which I note the simple joy with which I click some object. Click! Boom! A shower of coins! An explosion! Angels sing! And sometimes, a rare object appears that helps me complete a collection.

It’s a simple sound and light show, yes. I get that. And yet… God help me, it’s fun to click the thing. There’s feedback, and occasionally a surprise. It’s like popping bubble wrap in my browser.

In tabletop games, you can get the same simple joy just from drawing a card. There’s a pleasant tactile feedback from the action, and hey — surprise! — you’ve got some new card to affect your strategies.

Moments of feedback and surprise are moments of fun.

So if you want your game to be fun, it should be stuffed full of these moments, right? Not necessarily.

Until it Turns Bland

These kinds of cheap thrills suffer from diminishing returns. The more you have, the less fun they are. They wear out; you get bored.

Tossing the beach ball around was fun for maybe an hour. I wouldn’t want to do it all day. Playing “click the thing” on Facebook is okay for the three minutes it takes to use up all my energy, but I wouldn’t buy the game for Xbox. And drawing cards is great, but actually playing them is better.

Moments of fun are important, but you can’t build a game out of them. They simply don’t engage the player at a deep enough level. They work best in small doses, such as when introducing a new player to the game, or when rewarding a experienced player for deeper engagement (“Thanks for taking your turn. Here, have a card from the Action Deck. It smells like chocolate.”).

Find the moments of feedback and fun in your game. Capitalize on them. But make sure there’s more to the game than just those moments, or risk boring your players with empty bubble wrap.