What makes a great game?

"It feels like there's something for everyone in video games. It's not just a toy for a certain age group. It's steeped in the culture now." - Rich Moore

decisions

The best games that I've ever played relied on decision making - your tactics and strategies made you or broke you. While the games that don't require much thought have had their place, the ones that kept me up until 4 am - unintentionally - those are the ones that I remember. I think there's something to be said for games that force players to manage resources and make choices about how to allocate them. I learned about budgeting, the time value of money, and, most importantly, psychology from playing games. Considering things before you do them is a useful life skill - even gaming sense can be useful in some situations. But I think that gaming sense is really where this list ends. I want to see more games that remove the utility of having played other games. And perhaps just as importantly, I'd like to see functional strategies that don't exist in other games. Effective strategies are difficult to predict, but at the very least it is possible to make standard strategies less effective.    

Puzzles

I'm not the biggest fan of puzzles. I enjoy them, but a lot of the time I just get frustrated and stop thinking about them with the intention of actually solving them. Despite that, I appreciate them - I appreciate good design. Several of RPGs, such as Mass Effect, started adding solving short puzzles or completing challenges as a way to unlock doors or containers. I think that the first few iterations of the same puzzle can be good and do force a player to think about a solution rather than just rushing to an answer. But ultimately,  like anything else, you as a player learn how to solve things much quicker after you've seen them a few times. So, in the same way that I don't like the idea of gamer sense being allowed to find it's way into new games, I'd like to see a recurring struggle to succeed - a level of complexity and dissimilarity that keeps the mind on it's toes.  

What are we building?

I know that you were hoping to read or scroll this far down and actually find a meaningful description of what we're making. Tough. I know you just want to steal Z8 Games™ 's idea, so I'm unwilling to talk about it here just yet. It also turns out that there are two different games being worked on. One is sufficiently developed for you to try, so feel free to fill out the form below and I'll reach out about play-testing. No promises. The other game isn't far enough out of concept for me to share, but it would suffice to say that you'll be required to give it your full attention if you want to do well.