What are the key things to make a good game?

I want to know what are the key thing the make a good game.

energy bars, microtransactions, bugs, and nonexistent customer support.

• Bug amount

• Music

• Gameplay

• Graphics

• Is it unique

• Amount of things you can do

Shooting.

longevity(at least 1 hour of gameplay, unless its a score attack like pel).
good controls.
no lag.
good difficulty settings. not too easy, but not too difficult(even better if you include difficulty options).

Originally posted by GameBuilder15:

Shooting.

I hope that was a joke.

A good, well thought-out story is always nice. Also, if you are making a game that involves them, make the hitboxes actually be good. Lack of good hitboxes is why Fracuum can be annoying and Let’s Jump is just plain terrible. Well, Let’s Jump also has extremely slippy controls. Other than that, difficulty settings are always nice. Or at least level sets that vary in difficulty.

Replayability.

Originally posted by Blizzard2000:
Lack of good hitboxes is why Fracuum can be annoying

Colour me surprised, but how can a game that is completely made out of squares have bad hitboxes? I don’t think the developer, which is definitely no amateur, has intentionally messed up with their sizes just to annoy people; I tried it multiple times on newgrounds while getting all the medals and never found any hit to be unfair. Care to elaborate when such occurrence happens?

Personally, I have always found these factors to be key to a good single-player game (most notably, RPGs):

-Impact of player decisions
-Character Growth (either via gameplay or through the story)
-Vulnerability
-Imposed Limits (Sonny 2 always comes to mind)
-Replayability
-Bugginess (the less, the better)
-Good Controls

And then the 4 big ones

GAMEPLAY
GRAPHICS
AUDIO
STORY

I will not expand on those since it really varies from game to game.

Then there are plenty of unnecessary but welcome additions. I love fan service.

Originally posted by Danaroth:

Originally posted by Blizzard2000:
Lack of good hitboxes is why Fracuum can be annoying

Colour me surprised, but how can a game that is completely made out of squares have bad hitboxes? I don’t think the developer, which is definitely no amateur, has intentionally messed up with their sizes just to annoy people; I tried it multiple times on newgrounds while getting all the medals and never found any hit to be unfair. Care to elaborate when such occurrence happens?

It’s not that you or the enemies get hit unfairly, it’s that sometimes an enemy (or you) doesn’t get hit when it was obviously shot. Guess I should also have said that it can help you. :P

Story and gameplay are the most important in my opinion. You can get over poor graphics as long as they aren’t terrible.

Decent game length, I don’t want to play something I’ll be done with in a single day.
A good game length will last at least a few weeks.

Fun game play, pretty much speaks for itslef(Kingdom Hearts II probably has the most fun gameplay out of any game, for me).

Replayability, I’d like to be able to replay it every once in a while, and not be bored of it.

Graphics, doesn’t necessarily need to be “good”, merely “appropriate” to the type of game.

Content, probably ties in with game length, but having lots of optional stuff to do is always nice when you want to take a break from the main storyline.

Storyline, not quite as important to me as gameplay or length, but if the storyline sucks, I’ll definitely think less of it, whereas if it’s amazing, I’ll enjoy it considerably more.

Character need to be decent, at least.
If they’re annoying where not appropriate, the game can become intolerable to play.

Controls need to be appropriate and easy to learn and use.
Lots of games have been considerably less enjoyable due to a shitty control scheme, where I could’ve thought of considerably better and easier ones to use.

Audio always helps setting the mood and tone of a game.
If the music or sound effects suck, they can always be muted, and there’s not much loss there, but if the audio is good, it’ll make the game that much better.

Originally posted by Order_Venom117:

And then the 4 big ones

GRAPHICS

I don’t understand how graphics can one of the most important pieces of a game. As long as you can tell what is occurring, the graphics are fine. Sometimes worse graphics can define a game, if it suits the idea itself.

I personally find creativity to be the most essential thing to making a game.

“I will not expand on those since it really varies from game to game.”

Clearly, I have to expand on this now. Would you consider Mardek RPG an homage to retro video games if it looked like Skyrim?

Furthermore, would you consider Skyrim the latest and greatest RPG on the market if it looked like Final Fantasy 4? The graphics need to match the tone, expectations, atmosphere for the game or it simply makes the game worse.

Clearly, you must have assumed that I meant “great graphics make the game.” Nope :)
Personally, one of my favorite games on here is Mardek RPG as well as most nerdook games…and those look like as* compared to most other things; however, the graphics suit them and I enjoy playing these games.

Going beyond that, I would not expect Epic Battle Fantasy 4 to look like it was drawn by a 3-year-old (having a seizure) when I know what the previous installments have all looked like.

As HA put it, “Graphics, doesn’t necessarily need to be “good”, merely “appropriate” to the type of game.”

Ahh, I mistook what you said as that a game must have great graphics. What you said there is true, and I agree.

I think for me one of the main things that makes or breaks a game is the amount of realism that the game has, because if there are just major discontinuity errors in the game, and the storyline makes no sense it can be very frustrating to try and relate to, because I am often too busy antogonising over the details that the author has missed out. I know this is a very little thing, but I really hate it when games are just stupid and unrealistic. I mean when I eat grapes I get diarrhea. I just like to see that in a game, and when a game makes sense it’s just so much easier for me to play the game as a whole.