My teen years in the early 1980s were the heyday (in my opinion) of arcade video games. This was after the Atari 2600 but before Nintendo really made it big and began the shift toward home game systems. And this was waaaay before the Internet as we know it today. So back then, if you wanted to play a video game, you went to the arcade. (And a play only cost 25 cents back then, too!)

One game considered a classic of that era is Williams' "Defender". You can read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defender_(video_game)

The reason I'm going into all of this is because as I was reading that page recently, I was struck by statements in the "Development" section like this:

After spending a few weeks on the design, however, the team abandoned the idea, believing it lacked enjoyment.

Another:

The team experimented with recreating the game with pixel graphics, but also abandoned it because they felt the gameplay lacked enjoyment and visual appeal.

When we are creating games, we're often so awed by the process of creation and by our "child" that we often lose sight of what's important, namely that people will someday be playing it. The game becomes a thing unto itself, and the eventual player becomes a secondary thought, if that. These Defender game creators not only had the eventual player in mind, they were willing to throw out work in progress if it ended up not being viable, something that can be painful to do.

I'd like to propose that when we're working on games we ask ourselves questions like this:
- What is the reason that someone would want to play my game?
- Does my game have enough *something* to keep a player interested?
- When (if?) the player gets to the end, will they feel that it was worthwhile or just a waste of a precious period of their life that they will never get back?

Note I'm not necessarily using the word "enjoyment." Different games have different emphases. Some are meant for fun; others are meant to disturb you or stir certain emotions or make you look at the world in a different way. And I'm not saying it should appeal to everyone. Different games will have different target audiences.

The point is: the game should have a point. Whatever it is, make it have one. Otherwise, your game is just... pointless.

We need to move from "Wow, look! I created a game!" to "Wow, look! I created a game that people actually want to play!"

And never forget to put yourself in the place of the player.

"The Golden Gaming (AND real life too) Rule", lol:

if you have to "Work", you must have a "Reward" for it. This is the difference between "good~fun grinding" and "bad~boring grinding" within a game.

ie GOOD: fight monsters (work=time+energy wasted), get experience points and items~equipment ~ learn spells -> make your character better (thus it is "worth it"; worth your effort~energy and the time it uses up), and also the challenge of it (of finding the mechanics and~or pattern needed to win the battle).

ie BAD: fight monsters (work=time+energy wasted), but get no betterment of your character out of it, nor any other type of reward! Why the %$#^^ am I even playing this game, %$@$#@ !!!, ????

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REAL ie BAD: reaching clvl 50 in Diablo 1, the perks~gains~benefits are so miniscle compared to the immense quantity of hours (actually YEARS!) required.

REAL ie BAD: Final Fantasy II for the NES, the vast amount of time it takes to beat the game just for a feeble graphic ending and~or "bragging rights", pfft.

games (NES) of the 80s were actually challenging to win~beat the game, the "bragging rights" were real and of value, but not for the TOO MUCH TIME that was required to do so. People of younger generation, seem not to understand this value, as all of there RPGs are like impossible to not win the game, lol. As the emphasis of modern RPGs is of exploration, story, and graphics, not challenge, like the RPGs of the 80s were about, lol. We didn't complain of the time requirement, we liked "grinding", as back then, we were kids, and had the time to do so, nor did we have the instant gratification that people can have~get now. We had patience back in the 80s as our world was less fast-paced than it is today, obviously.

the 90s (SNES) games leveled off in the difficulty of winning quite a bit, but some games were still hard even still, especially compared with the "impossible to NOT beat" the RPGs of today.

the 80s (NES) and 90s (SNES) were the "golden years of Gaming, TV Shows, and Movies", without question!

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what do people enjoy:

CUSTOMIZATION ("you're in control, you're the designer... of your, for example: character, or whatever... lol")

Story~Plot~Immersion~Purpose~Quests~Missions (be a hero, save the world, or be a villain and destroy the world, muhaha!)

Conflict~Relationships~Diplomacy~Dialogue~Conversations~Social Interactions~making friends, allies, and enemies~betrayal

Crime~Theft~Assassination~Taboo~Flying~Super Powers~going back or forward in time, or to a different world from our own real world~Etc (basically anything involved in being able to do or be or have what you can't do or be or have in the real world)

Combat! (and thus Equipment too: weapons and armors!)

Magic! (no explanation needed, humans have been fascinated by "magic", the unknown or non-understood, since the dawn of humanity, lol. What is at first "magic" to us, becomes what is "technology" to us, due to our fascination~desire of "to know")

EXPLORATION! (there's an entire "world" to explore: find dungeons, treasures, towns, new lands, new people, and etc) !!!

PUZZLES !!! (who doesn't like puzzles? ...okay... some people don't... lol)

CHALLENGE (physical and~or mental) !!!

Shopping! (yes, lol ~ even if you don't even give it a second thought as you play a game, shopping in a game, is still shopping! I'm able to buy something that I don't currently have... in the game, woohoo! no sarcasm, hehe)

Completionism (for those with the "perfection fetish", lol. I *HAVE TO* find~do everything that there is in the game! I HAVE TO find ALL OF THE SECRETS, muhaha! You can't hide from me, I'll find you or it!!!)

There's a lot of good stuff in there.

Very good points raised in both posts. I think it's worth pointing out that HK's list of things people enjoy is not a checklist that your game needs to contain as much of as possible. Rather your game should contain at least some of these things, but so that they are done well.

Another thing I'd add to the list is not so much a gameplay element but a support tool, and that is menu structure. It goes hand in hand with putting yourself in the player's shoes and shows that the game is aware that YOU are playing. I think a player feels more at ease if they have an easy to access, helpful menu that contains information they might need, much like the pause screens on graphical RPGs. I'm talking about help files, objective lists, introduction, walkthrough/hints, credits, maps, etc. etc. all in one easy to browse location. I think it gives the feeling of a support system behind you, you're not just dumped into the middle of a game and set loose to flounder. The player can open the menu, assess their current situation, what they've already achieved, and what they need to do next. The sidebars in Quest allow for some of this (score, health, inventory etc.) but it never hurts to have something a bit more thorough.

I think a good idea for writing better games is to play a lot of games written with other systems and see if your own game comes up to their standard. Play some of the winners and runners up from non-Quest comps and see what they're like if you want to impress anyone from the non-Quest scene.

Proofread your game. Seriously. In a text adventure, the text is all important. If the text is riddled with typos and grammatical errors, it's not a good game.

Don't add dozens of locations for the sake of it. If there are 100 locations in your game and nothing to do in 85 of them, scrap the 85.

Provide descriptions for everything the player can see. If it's there, it should be described, whether it's relevant to the game or not (and if it isn't relevant, ask yourself why you put it there in the first place).

Include hints, at least at the very start of your game. There's nothing more likely to have people quitting than being dumped in a locked room with no clear indication of how to get out and not a hint in sight.

Cover as many default responses as you can, and make sure they make sense. One recent Quest game I tried had "THAT DOESN'T WORK" as the quite bizarre response when I tried examining an item (in this case, a temple).

Learn to handle criticism. Not everyone is going to like your game and you're not doing yourself any favours by throwing a hissy fit because someone pointed out it wasn't the masterpiece you thought it was.

All valid points but for a different argument I think. You would hope that any game would try and do all that anyway as a base standard, but covering all of those bases still doesn't necessarily mean a game will be interesting to play. It just means the player is less likely to quit in frustration within 5 minutes because you haven't made an effort with the basics. Once you move beyond that, there has to be something that makes your game worthwhile.

On the subject of playing other games to compare yours to (and HK's RPG oriented list), if you're making an RPG style game and want a little inspiration (or just looking for a game to play), I suggest checking out a little known title from the late 80's called Fallthru. Despite the size of the game requiring a sparseness of descriptions and a relatively smaller vocabulary than some IF, it's hands down one of my favourite text adventures ever.

http://www.old-games.com/download/1317/fallthru

Very interesting topic ...
As a professional author i face the same problems. "Who wants to read my book anyway?" is very similar to "Who wants to play my game?".
I think a good story needs a hero who wants something so much, he would even accept his own death to get it. This attitude connected with a clear plot structure eliminates many problems in the first place. Stories happen to people not the other way round.
How do you start, when you think about a game? I start with the last scene in mind. What feeling should the player earn as his reward. Should he feel happy if he killed all the monsters or should he feel sad, because he was not able to get the hero what he wants? ... OR ... and here is the interesting point: Should he feel something completly different like fear, anger, melancholy?
I think that would be a new way to put live into interactive fiction, because it is a proactive genre.
In a shooter, i have to react very quick to reach the goal. In IF i have to sit and think about my actions. I'm proactive in my actions.
So should the insight be in the end.

Well, just the thoughts of a writer ...

after reading through most of the article, it belongs in this thread (instead of it's own thread ~ I removed that thread by deleted my OP post of it, I should've read a bit more of the article first, lol):

it deals with the history of different paths (computer RPGs vs japanese RPGs) of RPG design over the years, and thus it does delve into those types of game designs, and whether (the pros and cons) they make your game worth playing or not.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1 ... hp?print=1

it's a pretty interesting read, of the different designs "treks" of different types of games.