In much of the game design literature out there, you’ll likely see advice about game features along the lines of, “if it isn’t fun, it doesn’t belong in the game.” That’s good advice, for sure. Features that aren’t fun can kill an otherwise enjoyable game. But a particularly frustrating type of unfun feature is one that is serves no practical purpose and has a negative impact on the game.
Sometimes a feature is intentionally added to a game. Occasionally, a feature intended to be useful turns out to be useless in reality. In either case it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as the feature has no effect on game play or on the enjoyment of the game. Easter eggs are often useless and are a good example of an intentional case. Some useless features may be intended to add flavor to the game world, or as a joke that some players might actually get. Regardless of the intent, sometimes they just fall flat.
Cliffski recently wrote a blog post titled WARNING - Do NOT attempt social commentary, in which he reveals that a particular feature of his game Kudos is totally useless. Players can spend their character’s money on a lottery ticket, but what they don’t know is that there is no chance of them winning the lottery. It was intended to be a joke which demonstrates Cliffski’s disdain for lotteries.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with making social commentary in a game. But it shouldn’t be done at the expense of fun. In this case, Cliffski’s joke was lost on some players, who kept asking him why they never won the lottery. I doubt anyone got it. I know I didn’t. Considering the nature of the game, I think there’s an expectation that the lottery can be won. All the lottery tickets do are cause the player to waste money, as Cliffski announces in big, bold type in his post. In other words, it has a direct, negative effect on game play by draining resources for no return.
As it is implemented, it still could have been fun if there were more to it. All Cliffski needed was to place a hint or two somewhere in the game, something that the players could use to infer the point he wanted to get across. When players realize that a developer is making a joke or social commentary, it enhances the fun factor a bit.
If you do want to add a do-nothing feature to your game, make sure you consider it from all angles. If it affects the game in a negative way, there should be a way for players to understand why it’s there. Obviously, Kudos hasn’t suffered at all and is a fantastic game. But you really want to avoid aggravating your players as much as possible.
Technorati Tags: game design, game development, game features, Cliffski, Positech Games, Kudos
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