What Makes a Game Fun? A Surprisingly Deep Homeschool Question
What makes a game fun?
It sounds like a simple question, but it can get quite complicated quite quickly.
Is it the challenge? The story? Winning? Getting better at something? Exploring a world? Collecting things? Playing with friends?
Why can one person spend hundreds of hours happily playing a game that someone else abandons after twenty minutes?
For kids who are already interested in games, questions like these can be a fascinating direction to follow. They don't need to stop playing and start doing a lesson about games. They can simply start noticing what happens while they play.
Because once you start looking closely, games are full of interesting choices.
There isn't one recipe for fun
A racing game might be fast, competitive and difficult to master. A cosy game might let you spend an hour arranging furniture or tending a virtual garden. A card game might rely heavily on luck. A strategy game might give players dozens of decisions to make.
Then there are games like Minecraft, where one player might be trying to survive while another is building an enormous castle and someone else is wandering around looking for axolotls.
They're technically playing the same game. But they're not necessarily enjoying the same things about it.
Someone might play games because they love:
exploring and discovering
collecting things
solving puzzles
competing
cooperating
building and creating
following a story
developing characters
making strategic decisions
taking risks
mastering something difficult
customising characters or worlds
completing things
experiencing something unexpected
Usually, it's a mixture.
A learner who already has strong opinions about the games they play may have plenty to say about which of these matter to them and which don't.
What keeps you coming back?
Some games are played once and finished. Others keep people coming back for months or even years.
Sometimes there's always something else to discover. A new place, character, item or piece of information is waiting somewhere.
Sometimes it's about getting better. Something that initially seemed impossible gradually becomes manageable, and eventually easy.
Games can also give players things to work towards: another level, a complete collection, a new ability, a better score or a particularly elusive item.
And sometimes the fun is in the activity itself.
Building. Racing. Sorting. Exploring. Solving. Decorating. Battling. Creating characters. Talking to other players.
There doesn't necessarily have to be a big reward at the end.
Does a game need a winner?
Winning seems like an obvious part of games.
In plenty of games, it is. Someone crosses the finish line first, has the most points or is the last player standing.
But lots of play doesn't really work like that.
You don't have to defeat the Ender Dragon to have successfully played Minecraft. Someone might spend their time designing buildings, collecting animals or creating elaborate redstone contraptions.
Other games centre on exploration, storytelling, creating, collecting or simply spending time in a particular world.
Even when a game does have a winner, winning might not be the part a particular player cares about most.
Someone playing a board game might be more interested in building their strategy than the final result. Someone else might mostly enjoy the chaos around the table.
So perhaps another useful question isn't just how do you win? It's what makes you want to keep going?
Luck, skill or a bit of both?
Games also handle uncertainty in very different ways.
Chess has almost no luck built into it. Both players can see the board and every move is a decision.
Roll a dice or shuffle a deck of cards and something different happens. Players don't have complete control over what comes next. That unpredictability can be part of the fun.
A lucky roll can rescue someone who was certain they were about to lose. A terrible hand of cards can force a player to completely rethink their strategy.
But luck can also be frustrating. If careful decisions don't seem to matter because a random event determines everything, some players lose interest.
Others don't want a game where the most experienced player wins almost every time. A bit of randomness gives everyone a chance.
There isn't a correct balance between luck and skill, but most players have preferences.
When does challenge become frustration?
A game that is much too easy may become boring.
A game that's impossibly difficult might not last long either.
Somewhere between the two is a point where a challenge can feel difficult enough to be interesting but achievable enough to make trying again seem worthwhile. And that point isn't the same for everyone.
One player might happily attempt the same boss fight twenty times because they're gradually learning what to do. Another might be finished after attempt number three.
The consequences of getting something wrong matter too. Having another go immediately feels very different from losing an hour of progress.
Sometimes frustration is even part of the appeal. The complaints, dramatic failures and ridiculous mistakes become part of the experience.
Other times, they're simply a reason to stop playing.
The same game can feel completely different to different people
This is where the question of what makes a game fun becomes particularly interesting.
A countdown timer can make a game feel exciting. It can also make it impossible for someone to think.
A complicated set of rules might give one player lots of interesting possibilities to explore. Someone else might find it exhausting to keep track of them all.
Random events can be hilarious or infuriating.
Repetition can be boring or deeply satisfying.
Competition can be motivating or miserable.
A huge open world can feel full of possibilities or completely overwhelming.
For neurodivergent players in particular, things like predictability, sensory input, processing time, control, repetition and clarity can shape the experience of a game. But there isn't one set of preferences that applies to every neurodivergent player, either.
The interesting question isn't really whether a particular feature is good. It's what that feature does to the experience of playing.
Try looking at a favourite game differently
There's no need to work through a list of questions or write down the answers. These can simply be things to wonder about while playing or talking about a game.
You could explore questions like:
What part of this game do you look forward to most?
What makes you want to keep playing?
Is there anything you always avoid doing? Why?
When does the game feel difficult in a good way?
What makes it frustrating?
How much depends on luck?
Which decisions actually matter?
Is winning important to you in this game?
What part would you keep if you had to get rid of everything else?
Who would absolutely hate this game?
What would make it easier for a new player to get started?
Is there something about this game that other people don't seem to understand, but you do?
That last question can be revealing. A child who has spent months or years immersed in a game may have developed an enormous amount of knowledge about its systems, characters, strategies, mechanics and world.
Analysing a game gives that expertise recognition.
Want to experiment with what you've noticed?
Looking closely at a game can also make you wonder what would happen if something changed.
What if the goal were different?
What if players had to cooperate instead of compete?
What if you removed one rule?
What if something that currently depends on luck became a choice?
You don't need to create an entirely new game to find out.
The free Game Makers Activity Pack starts with a game the learner already knows. They change one element, try their new version and see what happens.
It's a small experiment that can reveal even more about how games work and why individual rules matter.
Download the free Game Makers Activity Pack
Games are worth looking closely at
For a child who loves games, analysing them doesn't need to be a way of making their interest more educational.
The game is already full of things to notice. There are systems and patterns. Choices and consequences. Numbers and probabilities. Stories, artwork, characters and worlds. There are questions about fairness, accessibility, challenge and what different people enjoy.
Why do I like this?
There might not be a simple answer.
That's what makes it such a good question.
