I also would not at all say you have fun “once you are not confused.” Fun is usually the reward for understanding. Once you are not facing uncertainty, fun generally goes away.

I think people start having fun at the very start of Super Mario even though it is exactly that sort of basic training. I often say that games are systems that teach themselves. Progression through a game is mostly stacking and recombining prior learnings as you encounter new challenges.

I should make that first sentence a new book blurb. :D

For example, your decision space moves from “how do press jump” to “when do I press jump to land where I want” to “where do I want to land” and “I have limited stamina, how often should I jump” and so on.

Rote interaction, already-chunked patterns, mastered problem spaces. If you’re playing any sort of action game, you master movement and control interactions really early, and then tend to scaffold new things on them, not learn more about them. Same is true for any other sort of interaction.

Decisions are about prediction based on priors. And then you see the outcome of your agency… not sure how you can elide learning from that process, esp in games… but maybe we have a terminology issue

It’s well established that chance success results in most of the same biochemical processes happening in the brain. Deducing unknown factors in a huge part of fun.

It may surprise you that at this point almost everything in that book has been scientifically validated!

PS, why the snark?

I have in fact publicly stated that’s why I wrote Theory of Fun. To go back to the basics :)

Interesting decision -> form hypothesis -> take action -> observe result -> update priors. That’s basically the definition of learning. Without it, the decisions may as well be left to chance.

As usual I have signed all the copies of my books at the @officialgdc.bsky.social bookstore!

Thank you!

Wow, we’re almost overlapping!

Today I came across a project that rebuilt all of Tatooine from SWG in VRChat, and another that is recreating all of UO as a Valheim mod. Kind of wild to see.

I still think of those as mastery, just more in the psychology and mutual understanding vein. We’ve all known players who are really good at “what will make this particular person laugh” for example.

My obsession for a decade: Parts of games are real, not fiction.

Like, you are not really becoming a powerful knight when you gain a virtual level. That's fiction, fantasy.

But you DO gain real skills. In manipulating buttons, game tactics etc.

In multiplayer games, the friendships are real.

Playing with “game” The world is full of systems. Often they exist below the threshold of what we perceive. It’s all a whirling clockwork of near-infinite complexity, from the tiny mysteries of quantum physics t…

I just shared this in a different thread, but it covers a lot of why I think it has a lot of nuance. What’s silly imho is using definitional stuff to exclude as opposed to using it to help communicate, analyze and come to personal understandings. www.raphkoster.com/2013/04/16/p...

*shrug* I don’t think it is, it’s a pretty nuanced issue.

Am about to start a 2.5hr drive so can’t provide more links just now, apologies

Playing with “game” The world is full of systems. Often they exist below the threshold of what we perceive. It’s all a whirling clockwork of near-infinite complexity, from the tiny mysteries of quantum physics t…

Many! :D My blog is full of them! maybe best overview of my current take is www.raphkoster.com/2013/04/16/p... but there are also others across the site inc in presentations section

We might run afoul of semantics right off the bat. :D I don’t think fun is what makes games noteworthy and I think we find fun in all sorts of things inc narrative and more.

What makes them noteworthy imho is their systemic nature, which is a structural quality different from other media

I think you completely misunderstood my work :D

Digital Bards: Interactive Media and the Evolution of Storytelling YouTube video by Raph Koster

FWIW the last big thing I tossed out in this debate was pretty nuanced but also like 90m long. I wish more story ppl had reacted to it.

youtu.be/U_93O3_g9Yc?...

Also there is (speaking personally from the systems side) a feeling of “but this other part, the systems stuff, is so so important, and it’s unique to games and books and movies don’t do it well.” There is still, by volume, so little out there on deep analysis of systems.

The disagreement is usually hugely reductionist once it’s on social media.

If it gets framed as “games are generally not as suited to telling stories in the ways that books and movies have traditionally told stories, but better at storytelling in a different modality” ppl just get bored. :D

Recommended posts, 2017-2025 It's been over five years since the last time I gathered up recommended posts in one place and added them to the menu above. I figured I was due. As usual this will include talks and interviews as well as articles. Just think of it as "my take on what the best stuff to look at on the site is."

Recommended posts, 2017-2025

It's been over five years since the last time I gathered up recommended posts in one place and added them to the menu above. I figured I was due. As usual this will include talks and interviews as well as articles. Just think of it as "my take on what the best stuff to…

Looking back at a pandemic simulator It's been six years now since the early days of the Covid pandemic. People who were paying super close attention started hearing rumors about something going on in China towards the end of 2019 -- my earliest posts about it on Facebook were from November that year. Even at the time, people were utterly clueless about the mathematics of how a highly infectious virus spread.

I never posted widely about the public health simulator design I wrote as Covid was shutting down the world. Until now.

Today we reveal our Stars Reach development roadmap. More than a timeline, this is a full-featured living document. Click on individual cards for more information. Watch as cards move between categories as development progresses. We want your feedback. starsreach.com/roadmap/

This update went in today. Can't wait to see what people do...

Stars Reach’s latest patch adds Star Wars Galaxies-esque player cities to the alpha

Stars Reach’s latest patch adds Star Wars Galaxies-esque player cities to the alpha

The Servitors - 🧪 Stars Reach Lab #004 YouTube video by Stars Reach

In Stars Reach, every action or interaction with the planet affects its environment, fauna, flora, and players who play and live in it. But not everybody likes what you do…

youtu.be/nq92JvBVmoM