Casually Hardcore devlog

Addictive vs. Fun – revisiting the box stacking gameplay mechanic

September 28th, 2007

As I demonstrated to my students the Box2d editor and the sample box stacking game, a few of them got addicted to the physics gameplay which led to me to think about fun vs. addiction.

In psychology, addiction can be “triggered” by rewarding the player at infrequent intervals. We’ve all experienced addiction in games. Games we played, not for enjoyment, but to “finish it.” In fact, I can list many console and DS titles like that. Fun + addictive is rare.

Mr. BigPants referred me to a one-button Flash game called Tower Bloxx that uses a variation of stacking mechanic (swinging crane, 3 box limitless realistic physics – overall more hardcore). It’s pretty slick and has a full progression system (you build a city). It’s dark chocolate while Peggle is crack cocaine.

So we know the box stacking mechanic can be addictive but does that make it fun? I’m not sure about that. We’ll need to dress up the pig with more than lipstick…

What can make it fun is getting rid of the “stacking high to reach a goal” mechanic and replace it with something deeper and more fulfilling to the player. i.e turn it into a puzzle…

• Crayon Physics does this very well by letting you think up shapes to draw in order to reach the stars (goal objects).
• There was also a toy block game that required you to build a specific structure using a collection of wooden pieces.
• Puzzle Quest takes the match-3 mechanic and puts it into the context of a RPG. It’s pretty fun also.
• The fantastic Bridge Builder allows for multiple solutions – some just insane.

Bridge Builder proves you don’t need fancy graphics and sound to have a fun + addictive game. Tower Bloxx went the route of covering up a weak game mechanic with fancy graphics and sounds. For casual game / portal market this is necessary, so I don’t blame them.

Other physics-based games:

• Loco Roco(PSP)
• Toy Blocks (Freeware PC – tech demo)
• Chalk (Freeware PC – art demo)
• Kirby’s Canvas Curse (DS)
• Bridge Builder (Commercial PC)
• Toribash (Commercial PC)
• N (Flash) and N+ (XBLA)

Entry Filed under: Game Development