EPTWell if you asked me that I’d probably give you this as my smartass remark:
And then I listened to the song, and it really is true. All of this can be applied to video games:
F is for friends who do stuff together:
Now let’s take a minute to consider this phrase. The most popular video game of its time right now, World of Warcraft, puts this up on a pedestal. The experience of wow is heavily based on player interaction with other players. I’m 100000% sure that nobody in their right mind would try to play WoW if it was a single player offline RPG. As much fun as leveling and the storyline is in WoW, it isnt enough to capture millions of people’s $15/month for years. It’s about friends and people coming together to have fun. Instances require 5 people, raids require 10 or 25, and it creates an environment of fun. Ofcourse if people are assholes and/or trolling and/or bad then the “fun factor” of grouping significantly diminishes. Hence why F is for Friends who do stuff together.
tl;dr
Make player interaction fun and easy.
U is for You and Me:
You, my friend, are the center of attention. But also me! The problem with grouping with friends is that there gets a point where you really don’t want to/need to/have the patience to do something again. This is especially true in WoW with heroics for example. Nobody wants to do heroics for the rest of their life. It just isnt fun. Unless….. You get something and I get something from everything. Justice/Achievement/Valor/whatever points! Yay! Now I have a reason to do this super stupid instance/game/raid/etc because I get something as well as you getting something. Keeps players coming back for more. The more motivation for rewards (no matter how ridiculous sometimes) will keep players playing and paying. Or paying and playing… whatever
tl;dr
Have incentives for both players to want to play together.
N is for anywhere and anytime at all:
Anywhere, Anytime. Very hard to do but makes for an amazing game. World of Warcraft is a game that can be played on almost any computer at almost anytime (scheduled maintenance is unavoidable but unscheduled downtime is kept to a minimum). The sole reason that handheld consoles are sold ever is because they are basically a perfection of this. You can play your nintendo DS anywhere, and anytime at all, and soon in 3d for $250.
tl;dr
Make the game as accessible as possible from as many hardware and software configurations as possible and it will grow.
Well that was Spongebob’s idea of fun, but what about Plankton? Well of course you can apply his idea of fun to games too!
F is for Fires that burn down the whole town:
There are very few things that can be added to any game and always make it better. These usually involve zombies, guns, parodies, or fire and explosions. Even tame games like The Sims have extremely fun moments when your stove goes on fire… And all your Sims look at it… but never put it out… and your whole house burns down…. I’m not really who thinks that’s fun, but someone does.
How to make a dragon more badass:
1) add fire
2) ???
3) Profit
U is for Uranium, bombs:
function fun(EXPLOSION)
If EXPLOSION then
return fire()
else
return “not fun”
end
end
More or less, if you have an explosion, it will add more fun to a scene. Especially an action scene. Think of the terminator or Star Wars without explosions. It just isn’t as fun. Even if you add explosions to less serious games like Peggle, it makes the game more fun.
tl;dr
Impressive graphical effects such as explosions add to the immersion in a game.
N is for No survivors
When you win a match, nothing feels better than being the sole survivor, except being rewarded for it. Incentive to complete everything in the game and be the sole survivor add another fun factor to game play. Striving for that goal to be the best will also be a huge driving force in the games we play.
tl;dr
Give incentives to players to achieve goals and they will return to complete them.
But wait, there’s more!
Spongebob sings a second verse and it goes kind of like this:
F is for frolic through all the flowers:
Well this can be interpreted in two different ways.
Players want to be able to enjoy beautiful scenery. Make sure the art has as big of an impact as the game play and you have a recipe for success. Anyone that did World of Warcraft’s Black Temple raid instance knows how awesome it was to fight Illidan at the end in his own huge room. Even flying past the now revitalized Blackrock Mountain sends chills of awesome down my spine as I fight dragons and get purples.
Players want to be able to stop and smell the flowers. Eventually you need to give the player a break from the action and allow them to regain their composure and enjoy the game to its fullest. Having huge grinds or lots of intense fighting for long periods of time drains the player. I have this problem when playing StarCraft 2. After playing a close 1v1 match I feel mentally and physically drained and unable to continue. On the flip side, this face paced action cut into small 10-20 minute games makes it manageable and fun to watch. I just can’t imagine dealing with the levels of adrenaline that IdrA and Jinro have while playing each other.
U is for Ukulele
MUSIC IS IMPORTANT IN GAMES!!!
The best way to explain this is to watch this movie with no sound and then watch it with sound: Pay attention to the high points and the musical score. The huge changes in music as characters are introduced and the mood changes cause it to have such a huge impact on the enjoyment of said cinematic. Not convinced? Okay watch this video: . There are no words so nothing is lost in the voice acting. The high points and low points are not as easily distinguished with the lack of music. Try watching it with elevator music and see how much less interested in it you are.
tl;dr
Appeal to all of the players senses when they play a game. Make sure the musical score is appropriate for the emotions needing to be invoked.
N is for nose picking, sharing gum, and sand licking here with my best buddy
Yep I’m taking this one on too. Okay so no matter what you’re doing with friends, if its fun and innovative, people will do it. So even bizarre things such as nose picking, sharing gum, or sand licking, can be fun. Don’t believe me? Go play Wario Ware and tell me what the fuck they were thinking. I’m pretty sure it was this.
tl;dr
Be innovative and take risks with odd and new things. It will reward you in the end with a more interested player.
Hope you all enjoyed this analysis and I hope to think of more things in the future to be worth posting.
I'm surprised you were able to delve this deep into the lyrics though.
