1)In your opinion, what makes games fun?
The things that make games for me are ones that require me to think, one with somewhat challenging puzzles, side quests, a story line, interesting visuals, the ability to collect things, and the ability to interact with other people.
Not all games include all of these things, but I tend to find that the more of these things a game include, the more I like it. One of the reasons I love any of The Legend of Zelda games is because they contain a story line (usually somewhat predictable though) with a main quest, as well as a huge variety of side quests, a number of items to collect in various ways, tons of puzzles that are challenging but not so hard that I lose interest, interesting visuals, and the ability to interact with other characters. In some of the Zelda games you can do battles with your friends.
What I do not enjoy about games is extreme repetition, like games that require you to mash and build your levels in order to continue on and defeat enemies. It's especially boring when you have to continually fight the same enemies a hundred times over in order to level up. The lack of difference in actions, scenes, and characters really makes me want to drop my controller and do something else.
A continued change of stimulus is really what I think is best for any person in order to make a game more interesting. The more stimulus the better, that's what we humans seem to like.
Not all games include all of these things, but I tend to find that the more of these things a game include, the more I like it. One of the reasons I love any of The Legend of Zelda games is because they contain a story line (usually somewhat predictable though) with a main quest, as well as a huge variety of side quests, a number of items to collect in various ways, tons of puzzles that are challenging but not so hard that I lose interest, interesting visuals, and the ability to interact with other characters. In some of the Zelda games you can do battles with your friends.
What I do not enjoy about games is extreme repetition, like games that require you to mash and build your levels in order to continue on and defeat enemies. It's especially boring when you have to continually fight the same enemies a hundred times over in order to level up. The lack of difference in actions, scenes, and characters really makes me want to drop my controller and do something else.
A continued change of stimulus is really what I think is best for any person in order to make a game more interesting. The more stimulus the better, that's what we humans seem to like.
2)Which of these things (if any) were present in the I <3 Bees ARG? If not present, what made I <3 Bees fun?
The I <3 Bees ARG had a TON of changing stimulus, which is why I think it was so successful. While most games, as discussed in the article, are sort of pre-built and pre-coded entirely, this was a game that entirely depended on the users and entirely changed because of them. Not one moment of the game seemed the same.
The game started off with a basic main story-line, though not quite as spelled out and obvious as most games. Once the users began to decode the story line, the rest of the story line really seemed to depend upon their own actions.
The game was entirely a puzzle. If the entire game was made for one person, it would have been nearly impossible requiring expertise in all areas that most likely the person didn't have. However, since the game was based upon the contribution of many users, any contribution of any size in any area broke the puzzles up among the users into more manageable sizes, skill levels, and areas of expertise. Those who were better at literally interpreting the GPS points were able to successfully go out to those spots, while others who were more mathematically skilled could solve the puzzle in a less literal way that the other users may not have been able to.
I'm not entirely sure about the visuals or side quests, but I think the puzzles in themselves created side quests such as users literally going out into the real world, finding these GPS points, and reviving phone messages on pay phones. Based upon the graphics I've seen from the first and second Halo game, I have no doubt that the graphics were probably satisfying enough.
I'm not sure about collection objects, but I know there was a ton to collect among all of the data, GPS points, emails messages, forum messages, etc. The users themselves even required the collection of new things that may not have been necessarily planned, such as the entire language of Flea++ which was decoded and collected into a cheat sheet. There was also the collection of the calling map users made to figure out where and how often calls were received called Axon Coordination.
Of course, the most important aspect to this game, in my opinion, was the interaction among all of the users. The game basically required this interaction in order to function. Users shared data, teamed up to collect data, devised plans, discussed problems, etc. Here was a great example of a spontaneous moment required users to quickly divide, collect data, and share it among each other in order to succeed:
"At the start of the game, phones were scheduled to ring one at a time, with
The I <3 Bees ARG had a TON of changing stimulus, which is why I think it was so successful. While most games, as discussed in the article, are sort of pre-built and pre-coded entirely, this was a game that entirely depended on the users and entirely changed because of them. Not one moment of the game seemed the same.
The game started off with a basic main story-line, though not quite as spelled out and obvious as most games. Once the users began to decode the story line, the rest of the story line really seemed to depend upon their own actions.
The game was entirely a puzzle. If the entire game was made for one person, it would have been nearly impossible requiring expertise in all areas that most likely the person didn't have. However, since the game was based upon the contribution of many users, any contribution of any size in any area broke the puzzles up among the users into more manageable sizes, skill levels, and areas of expertise. Those who were better at literally interpreting the GPS points were able to successfully go out to those spots, while others who were more mathematically skilled could solve the puzzle in a less literal way that the other users may not have been able to.
I'm not entirely sure about the visuals or side quests, but I think the puzzles in themselves created side quests such as users literally going out into the real world, finding these GPS points, and reviving phone messages on pay phones. Based upon the graphics I've seen from the first and second Halo game, I have no doubt that the graphics were probably satisfying enough.
I'm not sure about collection objects, but I know there was a ton to collect among all of the data, GPS points, emails messages, forum messages, etc. The users themselves even required the collection of new things that may not have been necessarily planned, such as the entire language of Flea++ which was decoded and collected into a cheat sheet. There was also the collection of the calling map users made to figure out where and how often calls were received called Axon Coordination.
Of course, the most important aspect to this game, in my opinion, was the interaction among all of the users. The game basically required this interaction in order to function. Users shared data, teamed up to collect data, devised plans, discussed problems, etc. Here was a great example of a spontaneous moment required users to quickly divide, collect data, and share it among each other in order to succeed:
"At the start of the game, phones were scheduled to ring one at a time, with
enough minutes spaced out between them so that the D.C. team of players could move from one
to the next, methodically answering all of the calls and collecting all of the content. By the end of
the game, all dozen phones were ringing at precisely the same second, forcing players to divide
and conquer, while communicating in real-time with each other via mobile phones to compare
answers to the questions and report any live challenges that were given" (McGonigal 36).
Overall I think that playing the game would have been extremely fun. While it didn't contain anything like "character dressup" (as far as I know) or large bosses to defeat (again, as far as I know), the game was so brilliantly made and brilliantly conducted by users that the level of stimulus far exceeded that of any typical game with petty things like dress up and item collection and level mashing.
I believe it's all about the stimulus, and this game certainly had it.
Overall I think that playing the game would have been extremely fun. While it didn't contain anything like "character dressup" (as far as I know) or large bosses to defeat (again, as far as I know), the game was so brilliantly made and brilliantly conducted by users that the level of stimulus far exceeded that of any typical game with petty things like dress up and item collection and level mashing.
I believe it's all about the stimulus, and this game certainly had it.
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