Week 8 in Game Design

Today's lecture was about defining fun and how to inject that into our games without it feeling forced or passing the majority of players over, however defining what "fun" is is a difficult process.
If we define fun we find that to some extent it is the enjoyment and want to engage in an activity for pleasure.
The problem arising here since what is fun for one person would not be fun for another person, and even within certain genre of games the way in which the game is delivered can vastly effect how enjoyable the game is.

Some people say that fun arises from making a series of choices to suit how you would approach a situation, others say that fun comes from working out the pattern in a game since humans look for patterns in everything.

Even so, if we do manage to find a game that is "fun" we also come across problems. If we say "fun" is excitement, enjoyment and being happy, what if we play a game that is deliberately scary or sad? fun isnt the only emotion that is craved for in games and as such it would be very hard to base a game entirely on fun since it would not be very engaging. In fact games with other themes such as horror or psychological or even games that make us sympathetic for the character who is going through something sad are considered some of the best games. You could not say that while watching a character die or suffer would be considered fun (at least not in most circumstances) but you could still say that you enjoy the game.

You could say that learning in a game, whether emotionally, skill wise or other is where the fun comes from in games, since humans are constantly striving to learn. Experimentation and learning how to use things in a game that you would not be able to use in real life is what some people consider to be fun.

Overall, it is difficult to define what "Fun" is and how to inject it into a game. Creating something which will make someone smile for a short while but then also get bored and move onto something else is very easy, whereas creating something that makes players sad or frustrated but gripped in the seats until they advance story or gameplay wise is difficult and another matter entirely.