The Challenge of Objectively Crafting Epic Video Games

I was delving into a game design component that gave me pause regarding whether this is what game development at the AAA level entails now — focusing on analytics and trying to “math” the best game. A significant transformation that many of us haven’t discussed occurred in the 2010s with the rise of indie games and how it challenged many assumptions about AAA development. For today, I want to explore why you can’t simply rely on numbers to create an excellent game, and why the best games have a touch of “grit” to them.

Objectively Average

Game design at its essence cannot be something you can definitively teach or articulate easily. You can explain coding or various forms of art, but it’s much more challenging to convey the differences in feel between Mario and Crash Bandicoot, or how Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal provide entirely different experiences despite being part of the same franchise and both being FPS titles.

In my perspective, feel is the X factor that distinguishes mediocre games from good ones, and good games from award-winning titles. It defines the difference between games that people fondly remember for years and those that fade from memory within a fortnight of release.

If you don’t understand mechanics and game design, you end up with a subpar game that nobody wants to engage with. Conversely, if you only examine a game from a numerical perspective and overlook how it feels to play, you might create something shockingly worse — a game that is strikingly average, one that no one will remember or associate with your studio after experiencing it. For a studio, this means you won’t be generating innovative and captivating ideas or attracting a loyal fanbase who eagerly follows your journey.

Part of sustainable game development is being able to create games that keep people intrigued about what’s next from your studio. You want them to be eager about upcoming releases — just the mere fact that you are developing something or preparing to release it generates excitement. Studios like Rare and New Blood Interactive exemplify this well.

To truly appreciate feel at this level means going beyond merely playing what everyone enjoys.

Finding the Rough Edges

Part of effective game design and quality critique is the ability to examine games beyond just what everybody else is playing. You can’t gauge game design by only enjoying the top titles each year. The reason being, you are engaging with a highly curated and polished experience where all the rough edges have been smoothed out. You won’t witness the pitfalls of a genre or the pain points, nor even recognize what they are. Occasionally, a slightly flawed 6 out of 10 game might possess something uniquely original and extraordinary.

One of my all-time favorite games from recent memory is Astlibra: Revision, a title that may be a mishmash of assets and royalty-free music, far from the polished or AAA experience that one could expect. Yet, everything comes together for an extraordinary journey that still feels coherent. Something like this might have never been conceived by a major studio or someone who primarily plays AAA titles. The same can be said for successful games like Balatro, Vampire Survivors, Deadly Company, and many more. These games aren’t visually stunning or graphics card-busting creations that took millions to develop.

What unites these games is their exploration of a very unique and particular facet of game design and gameplay. Are they all flawlessly crafted games that target their audience perfectly? No. Some of the most memorable games released in the last 14 years carry an element of “messiness” — they weren’t developed by a marketing committee. However, they do possess something that resonates with players, very much in the same way that titles like Stardew Valley and Factorio have.

Developers and publishers continue to chase video game success stories, believing there is some magical formula that, if followed precisely, your game will inevitably become the next million-copy seller and claim GOTY from every outlet.

What we find instead is that those games attempting to replicate another often perform far worse than the original. People don’t want to engage with a game they have already experienced — they crave something fresh and exciting. In the realm of Bullet Heaven games, I’ve lost track of how many I’ve played that are either “worse than Vampire Survivors” or “Exactly like Vampire Survivors but with a different theme.” Meanwhile, my favorite examples have all taken a different direction, such as 
“`Brotato, Picayune Needs, or Loss of Life Should Perish.

Exploring the Concept

Understanding the differences in gameplay certainly feels between notorious, legitimate, and expert-level examples of design is something that you simply might not easily articulate. You can explain to someone how to code jumping physics for your game; however, you cannot specify the exact values required to make jumping truly feel authentic. Here’s a bit of a challenge: can you create a platformer that has a similar sensation to Super Mario World or a shooter like Doom, yet you can only view images of those games; you are not permitted to actually play them.

Many developers I’ve encountered who attempt to create games inspired by these classics often do so in the most formulaic manner — yet there is a significant distinction between how Mario or Doom operates compared to the vast array of games that are “inspired” by them. I’ve mentioned this point before, and it needs to be acknowledged by everyone:

Classic games are not the target of your game’s design; they serve as the standards you aim to meet when you ask someone to even consider playing them.

If anyone claims to know the ultimate way to create a platformer, approach, FPS, or any game, they are not telling the truth. There are always essential elements of mechanics and genres that must be grasped; however, these are the “frameworks” you must appreciate before you can start thinking beyond them. If you believe that a player will be drawn to any game made in the style of what was available back in 1989, even the best of that year, you would be woefully mistaken. This is also why it’s challenging to convince someone that “this game is remarkable” or “this game