I've seen Minecraft rake it in, but what I don't get 100% is why is it that Meat Boy and

Braid are so successful. Both are adventure games, granted they have some neat

game mechanics, but this isn't a terribly new concept. So why are they so well received?

I'm not trying to be negative in any way. If anything, I think that this is great. However,

I'd like to know the steps (the process or the system, as in the approach) that they

used in order to come up with such a great game idea.

I've seen Minecraft rake it in, but what I don't get 100% is why is it that Meat Boy and

Braid are so successful. Both are adventure games, granted they have some neat

game mechanics, but this isn't a terribly new concept. So why are they so well received?

I'm not trying to be negative in any way. If anything, I think that this is great. However,

I'd like to know the steps (the process or the system, as in the approach) that they

used in order to come up with such a great game idea.

I think there was a good writeup on the addictive play in super meat boy on gamasutra. Braid is successful because it has a lot of cool gameplay mechanics for the most part; as a lot of people totally ignored the story.

edit: I'm almost the opposite of you in that I don't understand why people like minecraft so much.

I've seen Minecraft rake it in, but what I don't get 100% is why is it that Meat Boy and

Braid are so successful. Both are adventure games, granted they have some neat

game mechanics, but this isn't a terribly new concept. So why are they so well received?

I'm not trying to be negative in any way. If anything, I think that this is great. However,

I'd like to know the steps (the process or the system, as in the approach) that they

used in order to come up with such a great game idea.

I think there was a good writeup on the addictive play in super meat boy on gamasutra. Braid is successful because it has a lot of cool gameplay mechanics for the most part; as a lot of people totally ignored the story.

edit: I'm almost the opposite of you in that I don't understand why people like minecraft so much.

It's the building of different things that -- imo -- makes Minecraft so popular. I can

definitely see the appeal. The same goes for Terraria. It's like, you have your

adventures and build stuff. The type of world that many would like to live in, but for

one reason or another can't.

Super Meat Boy isn't an adventure game at all. It is a down and dirty platform game that has increasing levels of difficulty. The reason I believe it has done so well is because a good platform game is really hard to come by today and this game offers a challenge that most other games do not.

I've seen Minecraft rake it in, but what I don't get 100% is why is it that Meat Boy and

Braid are so successful. Both are adventure games, granted they have some neat

game mechanics, but this isn't a terribly new concept. So why are they so well received?

I'm not trying to be negative in any way. If anything, I think that this is great. However,

I'd like to know the steps (the process or the system, as in the approach) that they

used in order to come up with such a great game idea.

I think there was a good writeup on the addictive play in super meat boy on gamasutra. Braid is successful because it has a lot of cool gameplay mechanics for the most part; as a lot of people totally ignored the story.

edit: I'm almost the opposite of you in that I don't understand why people like minecraft so much.

It's the building of different things that -- imo -- makes Minecraft so popular. I can

definitely see the appeal. The same goes for Terraria. It's like, you have your

adventures and build stuff. The type of world that many would like to live in, but for

one reason or another can't.

Yep, at least half the fun I had playing both Terraria and Minecraft was showing off screenshots and videos to friends.

Then 40% was building unnecessarily complex stuff to show, and 10% was exploring the world.

But I think its impossible to look at the gameplay of any of these titles (including braid etc) and expect to find some "magic formula" or "process".

You need to look at it from a wider perspective, and look at who made it, and what they did to reach their audience, and potential audience.

I think most of the success is about timing (It's easy to be either too early, or too late) and getting good traction in media and blogs.

What it was that made people interested in writing about them could be discussed in great length, but a lot of it I think is very hard to repeat since it was so dependant on timing, situation and the personal history of the people involved.

And a healthy portion of luck.

Super Meat Boy isn't an adventure game at all. It is a down and dirty platform game that has increasing levels of difficulty. The reason I believe it has done so well is because a good platform game is really hard to come by today and this game offers a challenge that most other games do not.

Sorry, but what do you mean by a "good platform game"? One that work really

well on a console, making it easy to play while being fun at the same time?

But I think its impossible to look at the gameplay of any of these titles (including braid etc) and expect to find some "magic formula" or "process".

You need to look at it from a wider perspective, and look at who made it, and what they did to reach their audience, and potential audience.

I think most of the success is about timing (It's easy to be either too early, or too late) and getting good traction in media and blogs.

What it was that made people interested in writing about them could be discussed in great length, but a lot of it I think is very hard to repeat since it was so dependant on timing, situation and the personal history of the people involved.

And a healthy portion of luck.

:)

Yeah, I kinda want that formula :) . I know, there is no function(var1, var2, var3) => successful game!

But honestly, the reason for starting this thread, I really would like to know about the

opinions of others as to why these games have been so successful. I watched the

Indie game move, that was good and had a lot of personal interviews.

I used to play more often (not as much free time now). Ultimately, if I put in the correct

effort and with a bit of luck and after a good deal of patience, I'd like to make my own

game and escape my corporate rat-race (no, I can do without the Aston Martin, I just

want my time back).

Sorry, but what do you mean by a "good platform game"? One that work really
well on a console, making it easy to play while being fun at the same time?

I think one of the big allures of SMB is not that it is easy to play, but that it is really hard to play.

But hard in the right way.

Meaning that with practice, you quickly get a return, and feel that you get better and better.

It's a game with an unusual level of frustration while you play.

This level of frustration actually spawned a movement of its own, with people posting videos of people playing SMB and cussing.

That caused more people to know about the game, and get interested in what is this "impossible" game, and can I beat it?

Also minecraft had this factor, and also Terraria. (but not because of frustration, you wanted to share what you built)

So that's one thing you can look at. How to make your players want to share their experience? (on youtube, blogs, etc) And how to make non-players find this shared experience interesting?

There are no easy answers there.

But honestly, the reason for starting this thread, I really would like to know about the
opinions of others as to why these games have been so successful. I watched the
Indie game move, that was good and had a lot of personal interviews.

As you may have seen on Indie Game: The Movie, those games (Braid, Super Meat Boy) were the Vanguard of indie development.

They went through some hard stuff to achieve the polished game without much support from anyone else. They also had to talk to hundreds of people begging them to rate their game so that others could see it.

Today, just a couple years later, it is much easier to enter this industry and there are several platforms out there that will do the advertising/marketing for you.

So, adventure-platform-games are super trivial today. But back on the day SMB launched, they were pretty amazing.

Super Meat Boy isn't an adventure game at all. It is a down and dirty platform game that has increasing levels of difficulty. The reason I believe it has done so well is because a good platform game is really hard to come by today and this game offers a challenge that most other games do not.

Sorry, but what do you mean by a "good platform game"? One that work really

well on a console, making it easy to play while being fun at the same time?

It has very high quality game play, sound, ambiance, replay value, and scaling difficulty. Not a lot of quality 2d platform games get developed in this day and age; this game was an absolute treat for someone like me.