Brown's Bit By Bit

Now that some much needed history and context has been added as to what makes video games fun, it is time to take a good look at the circuits and computer chips and see what elements combine together to make a video game fun . After playing games on that I find to be particularly fun like Super Mario All Stars (SNES) and Donkey Kong Country (SNES) , I have come to the conclusion that what makes them and any other game fun is a combination of factors. Easy to comprehend and grasp controls, level design that is not frustrating or overly complex, innovative and creative graphics, satisfying sound effects and score, and near flawless mechanics. The fact that each game provided nostalgic memories and similar feelings associated with them was also present. To further solidify my theory, I played games that I did not find to be fun at all like Silver Surfer (NES) , and The Rocketeer (SNES) and they had some factors that were in common. They both did not have easy to co...

In 2015, The Pew Research Center found that “49 percent of Americans say they sometimes play video games on a computer, TV, game console or portable device like a cell phone (Wagstaff)”.  Because of this incredibly high number of the American public that at least play video games in some capacity, one can argue that the majority of the public in America today finds video games as fun and enjoyable than any other activity, if not even more so. This represents a massive shift in what Americans used to do for fun. Provided by WestHost While it is true that some children still play outside and play games like kickball, it is also true that the number of kids and even adults that play other activities than video games as their main form of fun is a lot smaller of a percentage nowadays than it was in the past. A massive aspect of this occurrence is how video games make us feel in unique ways that other activities do not. In order to fully understand how video games make us feel i...

Video Games are usually synonymous with fun , much like any other form of play, video games can be a thrill to the senses and be some of the most rewarding activities out there. But what is it exactly that makes games fun? And are there particular elements in any game that determine how fun a game is and is there a way to take those elements and use them to make the experience of playing a game that is not considered fun enjoyable?  Now in order to really find out the answers to those questions, it is necessary to dig deep and discover what fun is and means, what its correlation is to video games , and how all of this creates the foundation for fun to be tied to video games. The Miriam Webster dictionary describes fun as “what provides amusement or enjoyment”. And also according to Miriam Webster, fun first appeared in the English language in the 1600s in France and the term made its way to the United States when petty criminals from London were carried over to the shores of the...