How to make your game 2X as fun! - (In No Time.)

How do you make your game more fun?
Here are a couple of effective tricks that will help you to make your game way more addicting and fun in not time!
You want to become a better game developer, but you feel stuck and don't know how to improve any further? This video should help you to up your game, because all of these tips are extremely easy things I wish I would have known when I got started with game development.
Making a fun game isn't all that difficult, so I bet you can easily double the fun players have with your game in just a couple of hours as well. Unless you're already an experienced dev, that is.
My name is Jonas and I document the entire journey to becoming a game developer. I share absolutely everything I learn on the way, so you can become a better game developer as well.
Join the Game Dev Discord: / discord
Subscribe to see more like this in the future. :)

[@JonasTyroller]

Was this useful? Which other tips do you have for making a fun game?

[@YaenGamedev]

Lot's of awesome tips in this video! Adding decent audio feedback can change everything for the better :) Animations on objects that are important to be noticed by the player! Post processing effects such as bloom, color grading, vignette etc. can help a lot. Smear frames and trails are pretty cool when dealing with moving stuff and animations in general. Just some stuff off the top of my head.

[@YaenGamedev]

Another one that I just thought of is to try and design systems with lots of opportunities to combine stuff to create unique abilities, situations, encounters etc.

[@YaenGamedev]

I keep coming up with stuff so here's some more: Add a main menu and title screen - makes your game feel way more finished. Don't underestimate what controller rumble feedback can do for your game. It can be more important than audiovisual feedback for certain mechanics. Especially for gradual stuff such as charging an attack. Speaking of which: anticipation in animations (especially for enemies) will elevate most games in terms of game feel but also gameplay feedback Risk-Reward-systems are cool because if they are well done they can facilitate interesting moment-to-moment decisions. Skill trees are often more interesting than totally linear upgrade-chains due to creating more interesting long-term decisions and customization opportunities through combinatorics

[@southoceann]

@@YaenGamedev I believe what you're talking about is called emergent gameplay enabled by systemic game design, but it's more about designing than polishing. There is a lot of mind tricks going into the designing of a game to make it appear more fun, I also think it circles back to another of video of Jonas about how to make players feel smart.

[@YaenGamedev]

True, that's about system design but Jonas also talked about design-related stuff early in the video. I think well done combinatorics can give you a lot of bang for your buck since you don't have to hand-craft every situation in your game.

[@sosasees]

I don't really like how many platformers have a slow walk speed, and a run button. This makes you hold the run button for most of the game. This is why, in my own platformer project, I made the default speed fast, to entirely remove the need for a run button.

[@mattiswan1]

that's basically the concept of sonic the hedgehog

[@satibel]

on platforms with non analog inputs, I suggest inverting the button, sometimes you want to go slow for tricky parts, and not just run off the edge like a dummy. another option is to add some momentum, like your character starts moving slowly but accelerates to it's top speed, which also can add some decision between going for the maximum speed or slowing down to be more precise. But if done improperly it may make the game feel sluggish.

[@kadirlofca]

Toggle run?

[@satibel]

@@kadirlofca another good option, crouch or run is very similar too.

[@charlottebiscuit4133]

same thing n++ does

[@ianpatrickwijaya2657]

EA: huh? microtransactions? alright

[@satibel]

* surprise mechanics

[@ianpatrickwijaya2657]

@@satibel ooffff

[@americantoastman7296]

haha EA bad xDDD Yea this is still funny xDDDD

[@ashleybyrd2015]

@@americantoastman7296 You disagree or something, mate?

[@1tkb6h66]

@@ashleybyrd2015 ausie

[@sethwilliamson_]

Very nice although the camera thing did hurt my eyes a lot

[@aerbon]

i'd say have the speed increase over time, if you were only comfortable with 50% bonus speed at first then your players are probably the same.

[@donkeyface4452]

Or have a difficulty meter that changes the game speed

[@toekneemart5597]

Perhaps it would be better to take a tetris style approach where each goal you get increases the speed by 1%

[@joelface]

@@toekneemart5597 I like that idea too. That gives the game a nice progression over time.

[@mithogui]

very good point

[@mr.gubagub1899]

- Add directions - Make decisions affect gameplay - Good colour scheme - Gameplay speed - Camera movement

[@Brahvim]

Thanks :D

[@ThinMatrix]

I've been watching a load of your videos in the last couple of days and I'm just so impressed! Especially videos like this one where you give tips; I think you're 100% correct on pretty much everything you say. I wish I'd seen these videos when I was starting out - would have saved me a lot of time!

[@JonasTyroller]

Thank you so much, man! Really means a lot to hear that from you.

[@cam4722]

My god, when you showed of the first gameplay with the better gun behaviour it was almost too intense for me to watch! So many tight situations!

[@Horzinicla]

Tip: slowing the player's movement is one of the worst things you could do. You must let the players feel in control. Look at DOOM or Mario, and how fun it makes the game with the movement alone

[@psilopsychic]

Stale Bagelz Not true, Halo: Reach was amazing and 4 and 5 didn’t suck because of sprinting but other issues

[@mammutbrot9230]

It works for some games. Like YumeNikki for example. The game is all about looking at the environment and atmosphere, so a slow speed makes it better.

[@waker_link]

ngl the movement speed is WAY too slow in yume nikki (even with bicycle) to properly enjoy the main thing about it - walking around

[@mammutbrot9230]

@@waker_link i didnt see it that way. I did have that problem in yume 2kki tho, since the maps in that game are way too large.

[@alfonshedstrom9859]

T i t a n f a l l

[@harley2938]

As you play your own game, you get better and more experienced at it, so the speed that you can play at will be different from the speed a new player can play at. It's important to be aware of that, and to get feedback from other people.

[@dnadan8637]

Thats also why u gotta design ur game so that its fun for all experience levels.

[@21CenturyBreakdownX]

absolutely. I've been making a single screen beat em up game. i beat the 2 levels i have so far every single time i play. had some friends try it and they can't get past the first 30 seconds of the first stage :(

[@thecatbrat42]

​@@21CenturyBreakdownXThen lower the difficulty maybe?

[@RayFlowerGames]

A tiny amount of camera movement? hahah! That's a lot! It would likely give me a headache after a while! It could be reduced to 1/2 or even 1/4 and probably be better -- enough shake so that you can feel it but not so much that it is constantly buzzing or moving around so much Thanks for the tips! I haven't thought about the micro decisions before, and it definitely adds a whole dimension to the gameplay, i'll be keeping it in mind. Colours, speed and camera work are also all 100% good things to keep in mind. Game speed I find is often the first barrier of fun in people's first games, so definitely agree.

[@igz]

Hey, Jonas, nice video. I would really love to see more videos of where you take a boring game and add interesting decisions to it. I've been digging into this subjects a lot myself, and I found a fantastic book called Situational Game Design by Brian Upton. If you want to get a formal/deeper understanding of what makes game situations feel playful I definitely recommend you read it :)

[@JonasTyroller]

Thanks for the tip! I've definitely seen this book on Amazon a couple of times, but I never bought it. Guess I will just do so now... :D

[@sosasees]

I only have 2 issues with your example game: • The rings should be Yellow, like one of the player colors, instead of blending in with the floor as if the transparency was 50% • The screen shake is Way too exaggerated so that I'd likely have motion sickness if I actually played the game instead of just watching it. Most games only shake the screen horizontally Or vertically, and only by 1 or 2 logical pixels (which are different from actual pixels as they are a reference unit) Everything else is correct and makes this video Very useful.

[@bdizzification]

Very interesting opinions. I actually liked the original color scheme and the static camera much better. Other than that, these seem like good ideas. Thanks for sharing.

[@magnusalferes1143]

been working on a game for two years i have found my way to most of these trick, wish I would have seen your channel 2 years ago.

[@Matshiro]

This video is amazing. The idea that you are telling is really simple and "obvious", but you managed to tell it in really transparent and good way, so many new developers could see why stuff that you talked about is important.

[@chaosmastermind]

You're a saint for doing all of this for everyone. I will definitely be using you as one of my inspirations and mentors for making my own games. So thank you.

[@FlorisChan]

Dude you're absolutely insane, super talented and smart about this, it's insane how much the game improved by just slowing the movement, keep up the great work. Also great fan of Superflight and Islanders

[@smotritelvidosov]

One of the best vids I have ever seen about game design. So simple and so effective. Just fantastic!

[@ganasoft816]

I think you are a very underrated content maker. I love the videos you make and it helps me out A LOT on my own journey of becoming a full time indie game developer. Keep it up!

[@yourMoonstone]

Was expecting some stuff I've already heard from the art of screenshake but this was actually super unique and cool! I love the tips and even making a turn-based game this is giving me tons of ideas. Keep up the great work dude

[@southoceann]

Yay taking more time but the content is of better quality. Great work!

[@JonasTyroller]

I've been doing 1 video per week for a while now. Thanks, southocean. I'm trying. :D

[@joemamah2545]

Jonas: How do you make your game more fun? Dani: Unity's particle system is a- Jonas: STAHP

[@VeryBlueBot]

wow... subbed a couple days before.. Your points are pure gold here and in other vids.. Im literally making a checklist based from your vids. Also seeing that some points are checked in my current developed game is so pleasing :)

[@MrLuc420]

Glad I came across your channel. These are some really good tips!

[@nick__4777]

the thumbnail: *DOUBLE DOUBLE THE THE FUN FUN*

[@frogballoon]

Come join the fun.

[@jakobmiesner3995]

Wow, this was super helpfull! Thanks a lot. I directly created TODOs for the tipps that you talked about!

[@MaxAndersonFilms]

Will definitely be implementing some of these tips in my own game! Thanks Jonas!

[@adhochero6619]

Great video. I’ve been learning a lot of coding for my game for the past little bit, and I started a game jam but realized I was lacking the “play” part of the game, it wasn’t fun to me. This video really helps put things into perspective. I’m going to take things back to the basic and make sure it’s fun first.

[@mohammediftekhar1424]

thank you Jonas...💜💜💜This video is so helpful 👌

[@Dominik-K]

Thanks a bunch, this advice is pretty invaluable

[@elumixor]

Thanks! Very practical, especially the first part.

[@deepeiton6112]

Love your videos! Keep 'em coming! 😊

[@paigehoney9055]

Really cool tips, thank you for sharing!

[@hipunpun]

This was great, thank you

[@balthabooth5758]

Wow, really good tips, thanks Joyner!!!!!!!

[@siegeperilous9371]

Very cool walkthrough. Appreciated!

[@GunnarClovis]

Absolutely fantastic! Really excellent points and having the example in the background with very concrete use cases was wonderful I just discovered your channel, but liked, subbed, all that Awesome work

[@JonasTyroller]

Nice! Welcome on board! I'm happy you liked it. :)

[@domedin9894]

As you demonstrated I could feel the chaos and franticness ramp up very impressive.

[@WangleLine]

Woah there, your videos keep improving each time. Love the atmosphere of this one especially. The way you talk, the music, everything fits so well together. Good luck, Jonas :D

[@JonasTyroller]

Thanks. Glad to hear it. :)

[@_ace55]

Congrats Jonas for 1000 Subs!

[@JonasTyroller]

Thank you! :)

[@go_better]

This is amazing! Subbed. One little feedback - camera movement caused motion sickness for me personally, so consider moving it to gameplay options

[@joekingston9326]

Watching this in 2x speed and I just thought you were insanely good at this game

[@pigizoid9924]

the way you explain things is very easy to follow along

[@AnasMations]

i felt lazy for over a month and didn't do any progress in my game cause i felt it was boring but your video motivated and inspired me a lot! thanks jonas

[@JonasTyroller]

Awesome. I'm very happy to hear that. Nice! :D

[@bowsermix1]

Great videos, love ur personality.

[@joachimsaindon3658]

These videos are gold.

[@dehrk9024]

Wow! You are literally just giving us free advantage in the game buiness, thats so cool! Thank you a lot!

[@WhiteNorthStar1]

Very good, thank U Jonas :)

[@sevehayden1463]

I find I usually need to slow down my games. Good video.

[@aleksdeveloper698]

Very smart video, well done!

[@critopadolf5534]

incredibly useful video, thanks!

[@thehbpro7383]

Thanks this made my game alot better

[@HipBlooD]

Really a great channel!

[@alejandrozamora3468]

This was useful and I enjoyed it

[@duck_is_lord]

First off, great video! I'm not a game dev yet but I'm enjoying all your tips for when I do start. However, in this case I actually liked the first color scheme better... the red enemies against the equally strong blue bg made my eyes hurt a little bit and it was hard to focus. I would've kept the bg a lighter color, but that's just my personal preference

[@nonac95]

Great tips yo improve a game rapidly. I think they are good to improve games jams game too. The juicy tips you mention are similar to an amazing talk I recommend by one of the Nuclear Throne designers Jan Willem that I saw some years ago on youtube.

[@AkaiKnight]

Good advice. Made me think differently

[@scrub_jay]

These tips were amazing, great job. Camera shake was way too strong imo but still a great tip

[@harleybekker]

awesome :) those are pretty good tips thanks!!

[@JonasTyroller]

You're welcome. :)

[@EndermanPierce]

Very good tips! I’m not even good with real coding and only use Scratch, but these tips still help me a bit.

[@iambored1528]

scratch is real programming as it does what any other programming language does: uses logic and instructions to get a computer to do something. scratch is just a visual programming language to make it easier

[@shaishavpathak]

Fun impactful sound effects are rewarding for the player as well

[@decrodedart2688]

Good tips! 😋

[@Erfan_Al]

You don't need to be a game developer to enjoy this video and this is good!

[@sosasees]

The Minimum Viable Prototype i made on Oct 22 2020 started out being too fast for my playtester, so I had to slow it down by what feels like 50% (not by actually slowing the character but by growing the viewport). After that, I could only increase the actual character speed by what feels like 10% before it became too fast for myself. This already sounds like a great start!

[@RTPcanadaGames]

🎉very nice. I enjoyed that

[@peterschooley3036]

1) Interesting micro decisions. Some challenge to find best solution. Trade offs. 0:23 2) Good color schemes. Useful link coolors.co 2:58 3) Speed and pacing. Usually too slow. 3:42 4) Effects, directional effects. 4:18 5) Camera movement. Screen shake. 5:17

[@Z9R.]

I got a idea. The game speeds up every second, but every time you collect a coin, the game slows down a tad. That way, the coins aren't completely useless and have a purpose

[@tackybob]

ayy thats a nice idea, can i use it if kool?

[@Z9R.]

@@tackybob I'm not going to do that anytime soon, so sure

[@mariojuan7539]

it seems so fun, that i need to play it!!!

[@achillesmichael5705]

Actually good content nice job

[@darcygibbons2891]

This video is genius!

[@SilverGoldYT]

I'm working on a bullet hell game, and in my game I had decided to make the bullets you fire automatic hone in on enemies so you can focus more on dodging. This video made me realize that doing that removed the micro decision of getting closer to enemies for better aim. I was able to fix it by making your bullets do much more damage when you are closer to enemies, so now I keep that micro decision while allowing the player to continue focusing on dodging

[@vladimir_ckau]

Good God, great talk! At 1:30 already stopped to take a bunch of notes on what would I do to make the movement more goal-y and engaging.

[@JonasTyroller]

Cool. What kind of game are you working on?

[@vladimir_ckau]

@@JonasTyroller Not working on a game currently. But interested in practical game design at any time of the day :) I've made a game last weekend for a jam. If you're interested, gm48.net/game/1040/runners

[@innovativename5268]

EN: Thanks man, you already help me with me with my first doubt. DE: Danke, du hilftst mir jetzt schon gegen meine meine Zweifel an meinem Projeckt, danke.

[@davidm.johnston8994]

Nice video :)

[@misterttocs2724]

Great video!

[@sukhWins]

This was a great tip thnk you

[@crazedbrazy617bh]

This is a good video thanks!

[@squali1930]

Amazing video.

[@zombiemachines]

I really enjoy these topics

[@JonasTyroller]

Thanks. What specifically do you mean?

[@zombiemachines]

@@JonasTyroller advices that are related to game dev .. and could be implemented in other domains with some tweaking.

[@ilug8571]

Excelent video, thanks for sharing useful information :j. Just a few changes you made and the game become better, remembers me to boxhead xd (2d flash zombie shooter) How do you implement knockback effect?

[@petiks6391]

Get the direction where the bullet came from and multiply that to the knockback force you want and apply that to the enemy's current velocity. Finally, add a damping so that the knockback force goes to 0 quickly

[@yoyo12345]

One more think I'd like to add When the player walks there should be a particle like the enemy's get when they did it would look nice

[@saulnores3477]

I like alll your advices, except for the last one. I HATE games that shake constantly. That's something old awesome games never had and never needed.

[@ralfc7363]

I know this was made like 2 years ago, but subbed

[@rijaja]

We were making an F-Zero -like game for a school project and the speed of the ships was 3. Someone suggested the game could be faster and just as an experiment I set it to 5, that's 66% faster. It was awesome. We were making a racing game based on super fast ships and we had forgotten to actually make the game fast.

[@PizzaMineKing]

I think micro-desicions with two equal solutions can be interesting if one of them has a (higher / different) cost - in FTL faster than light, for example, it is often equal weather you fire a rocket or not - firing the rocket costs ammunition, not firing costs time and possibly health. Neither option is necessarily better than the other in any given situation unless you're in the final stage of the final boss where leftover ammunition doesn't matter afterwards.

[@goldencookie5456]

Completely agree with you. A very good example of some of the things you said is a game called Diep.io. You remember the days when .io games were popular? Yeah, diep.io back in the day was one of the most popular .io games, probably just behind agar.io and slither.io. I'm sure you know what .io games are, but in case you don't, I'll explain. In the game, you basically spawn as a small tank in a server with multiple other people. You then shoot bullets to destroy squares, triangles, pentagons and even other players. As you do so, you gain level. And when you gain level, you are given points to upgrade a certain feature of the tank. These features include: -regeneration speed -health -body damage -bullet speed -bullet penetration -damage -reload -speed When you reach max level (level 45), you aren't able to even upgrade half of all of these features, which makes it that you have to find what's best to upgrade. Furthermore, when you reach level 15, you are given 4 different choices of different tank classes. When at level 30, you are given more options for classes and the options you are given varies depending on the first class you chose. Then at level 45, you are given even more options for classes. There are a total of 41 classes to choose. This variety does a really good job of accomplishing what you said in your video. It makes the player explore more and try to find what the best possible combination is.

[@musikSkool]

Make the targets different colors, one of the colors wipes 70% of the screen and stuns the enemies for a second. A different color target gives you another heart. Another one would be it turns on a fan that pushes all the enemies away from you for 2 seconds and disables new ones spawning for a few seconds. A target could even make your character blink and destroy them on contact for a few seconds. You don't want pressure on the player all the time, back off a little and let them relax. People need a little down time to regroup and think up a new strategy.

[@mayank_b]

hi Jonas, i really liked your project. Is there any way i can get hands on this awesome project of yours?

[@unlockener]

good vid, just turn down the bg music a bit next time so that mob can hear you better.

[@JonasTyroller]

Will do. Thanks for your feedback.

[@SapkaliAkif]

There was this game called Three Body Problem and it was basically your tips in this video combined with a basic game.

[@LuckyGnom]

If you add camera shaking, add an option to turn it off. It's incredibly annoying when the camera shakes for some people.

[@thataussieguy2613]

very helpful!!

[@JonasTyroller]

Awesome! Happy to hear that. :)

[@PizzaMineKing]

About pacing: a good rule of thumb to anything you believe might affect pacing, double it or cut it in half, one at a time - and see if that has any effect.

[@theemeraldfalcon9184]

5:21 who else got motion sick watching that?

[@dmas7749]

i didn't but eugh, it definitely looked better without that

[@carteradams43]

not me, i only get sick like that if i spin around rapidly

[@whythehecknot5038]

how tho. its very marginal

[@asmallphd9648]

yea

[@lcajueiro]

I almost threw up...

[@igorthelight]

Good! Double the fun - twice the sales! - Count Dooku

[@sosasees]

I can't see how the insane camera would help, because it makes everything so much harder to see, but everything else is very helpful. Thumbs Up Video!

[@lightswitch2622]

Camera movement helps, but it’s best when subtle

[@alexts1299]

Good Tips!!!

[@JonasTyroller]

Thanks for your comment. You're welcome.

[@emmettdufford8178]

Thx helps alot

[@danicopic5267]

Nice Nice Nice Nice! Really useful!! Nice!

[@JonasTyroller]

Awesome. Awesome. Glad to hear it.