A goal: Yes or No?

[Ricardo Vladimiro]

Hi

My second post here. I've been around lurking while I was finding my way, this is my second post (third since the first got a internet conection drop) and since this is an indie board for indie games, seems the perfect place to ask this.

I was writing a design document for the game I'm now coding. It's one of those "join 3 equal colored pieces" kind of game. I asked my wife for her opinion on the idea since she's a fan of this particular genre. She asked me, what was the point of ending each level? What would she be pursuing to win one level after the other?

I learnt from her that, although enjoyable, the simple fact of putting pieces together is not satisfiable.

I tried some of these games and found that some have a story, a goal while others don't. The problem is not writing a story, I feel confortable with that. The question is: in your opinion, is the definition of a path and a goal, along with a story, more appealing to the gamer of this genre or not?

Thank you for your answers

[MadSage]

I think it depends on the player. For many, I would say just beating their previous high score is satisfying enough, or reaching a higher level. I believe progression in some form is important. A story is one way of doing that, but not essential in my opinion.

[ggambett]

It probably can't hurt. If you put a path/map/story, some players will get a better sense of accomplishment and advance. Players who don't care and just want to match match match will ignore the path/map/story.

I'm not so sure that "the simple fact of putting pieces together is not satisfiable". It should be rewarding or at least enjoyable, as you said - add explosions, particle effects, nice sounds, whatever to make it at least attractive. You can't have a boring game with nice stuff between levels and expect it to do too well.

[Emmanuel]

Have a read at this thread (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2119) from James C. Smith, designer of Big Kahuna Reef, Big Kahuna Words, Ricochet, and a lot more titles.

Considering how high the bar is on match 3 games nowadays, motivating the player beyond the core mechanic definitely helps. I've applied some of his ideas on Fairies, using visually/aurally rewarding bonuses to motivate beyond the 3 second goal of making a match, and granting fragments of images to be put back together as a way to go beyond the 3 minute goal of completing a level, and it works well, gameplay- and sales- wise. We also reveal the map locations only as the player progresses, so as to add an extra element of surprise.

On top of adding goals, a story and a path, the matching mechanic seems to work best if the game is specifically designed for zoning out, ie. nothing takes the player suddenly out of the experience. Again, the pace and type of effects in Fairies were specifically designed to meet that goal (I notably slowed down or removed some effects and features that were distracting); hopefully we did achieve that goal.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[Ricardo Vladimiro]

That thread is absolutelly amazing and defines technicaly what my wife expressed from the player point of view.

This game is a whole new experience to me. First off, because I'm doing the code, which is a new thing in many many years. Second, never crossed my mind to make a puzzle game and the design doc itself was a fun experience. Still I had the feeling I was missing some game design concepts.

I have the story already, but was wondering if I should include it or not, thus using some more much precious time. Guess I will.

Thank you for your help, it's priceless.

[electronicStar]

After studying a few casual games players and reading experience from internetarticles/blogs (mostly females) I have came to the conclusion that some of the players enjoy just playing "match-3" ad infinitum without levels or anything, it' s sort of like an hypnotic experience or a way to pass some time without thinking. That would explain the success of some very easy games like avalanche that you can play ad nauseam without loosing or changing level.
On the other hand some players want their levels an stories and goals to accomplish.
So perhaps a good strategy would be to include two different play modes to satisfy everybody?

[Ricardo Vladimiro]

Some sort of "relax" mode. Some of the high selling titles include that. While I'm coding the engine itself I'll give a thought about it and document it. Can't go feature crazy right now. :)

Still would be pretty simple to implement, just throw the pieces, let them click until the mouse itself blue-screens.