What makes a good short game?
You do not need to be a gamer to judge these prototypes. Start with the experience a person has, rather than the number of features we implemented.
Start with the feeling
A game can make someone feel clever, skilful, curious, creative, pleasantly tense or connected to another person. “Fun” is too vague to guide every decision. Ask what this particular game is trying to make its player feel.
The MDA framework by Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek separates the rules we build, the behaviour that emerges during play, and the emotional experience. Here is an application to our pub: lowering a price is a rule; a busier queue and tighter margins emerge from it; noticing the trade-off and improving the business can create a feeling of competence. A chart that moves without a useful decision would miss that purpose.
Five things to look for
- A legible goal. Can a newcomer understand what they are trying to do? A short game needs a quick first success, not a long explanation before anything happens.
- Something worth doing. A puzzle offers a deduction, a timing game asks for a precise action, a simulation offers a trade-off, and exploration rewards curiosity. If one button is always obviously best, a business game may be busywork.
- A response you can read and feel. Your action should have a clear, timely consequence. Animation and sound can make a landing satisfying and explain a mistake. Sparkles cannot create a missing decision. Steve Swink’s discussion of game feel explains why the basic act of controlling something deserves attention from the start.
- Fair tension. Success should not be automatic, but mistakes should make sense. Give players information, a chance to improve and a quick way to try again. Unexplained failure is different from an interesting challenge.
- A reason for the next action. A new clue, a better plan, a funny discovery or the thought “I nearly had it” can pull a player forward. A score only matters if the player cares how they earned it.
What are the types of games?
Genres overlap. This is a practical map of what a player does, not a complete or exclusive taxonomy. A theme such as payments or an Irish pub can sit on top of several different kinds of play.
| Kind of play | Main pleasure | Try here |
|---|---|---|
| Puzzle and deduction | Work something out; feel clever. | Storefront Cipher, Lantern Logic |
| Timing and dexterity | Practise a physical skill; improve control. | Skyline Stack, Sling Delivery |
| Strategy and simulation | Understand a system; choose between competing benefits. | Cheeky Pint, The Slow Boat |
| Exploration and discovery | Follow curiosity; find a surprise. | Hidden High Street, Stripe City |
| Cooperation and social play | Coordinate, laugh and share a moment. | Counter Crew; check each game’s local-player controls. |
| Creation and expression | Make something that feels like yours. | Pocket Park |
Other useful distinctions are solo versus social, short session versus long progression, turn-based versus real-time, and fixed solutions versus open-ended systems. None guarantees quality. A calm exploratory game need not have a score, a timer or a loss condition.
How we should choose the final stations
My recommendation is to compare a few different kinds of play with people who have not seen the project. Let them start without a narrated tutorial. Watch where they hesitate, what they try and whether they voluntarily continue or retry. Ask “What did you think would happen?” and “What would you try next?” rather than only “Did you like it?”
For each prototype, record the intended feeling, the first meaningful action, the most interesting decision, the biggest confusion and whether the player wanted another attempt. One person is an observation, not a universal verdict. Use repeated patterns to decide what to keep, simplify or abandon.
Current evidence: the games run, their controls and loops have checks, and many have visual polish. We have not yet established human enjoyment, difficulty fit or replay appeal. Those are the next experiments, not facts to infer from passing tests.