Monday, May 19, 2008

This is why good games aren't free

So, there goes 4 hours of my life. I played Oil wars, Airport Security, presidential pong, the McDonalds game, orgasm simulator, and faith fighter. Although these were slightly offensive in many different ways none of these were very fun. Either not much thought was put into the game or it was badly designed and hard to pick up. Although I usually experienced extreme boredom during these games, I found Presidential pong and orgasm simulator to be hilarious both because of the animations and the ideas behind the game. Oil wars was hard to play and I ended up just randomly clicking stuff in the end. Airport security was interesting but lacked fun game play. Faith fighter was a fighting game where you chose from various religious figure heads and use stereotypical fighting moves. Although this was probably the most offensive of all the games the fighting sucked and thus the game sucked. I think the game that had the most time spent on it and as well the most value was the McDonalds corporation game. This game put you in charge of all aspects of the McDonalds corporation whether that be creation of the farms and cows, hiring of workers in the kitchen and at the register, marketing and business, as well as bribes and partnerships. If I actually wanted to manage an imaginary McDonalds company this would be a really good game. Unfortunately I don't. In conclusion it is pretty rare to find an enjoyable free game which is why good games aren't free.

1 comment:

loda said...

I forgot to post my potential game so i'll just add it as a comment. In my experience free games usually succeed when they are simple yet fun. A flash game usually lacks control so I would make some sort of simple typing word game. A possible idea would be a hangman type game that would have you figure out parts of famous quotes by famous people. Or possibly absurd and funny quotes from celebrities.
If I wanted to take a more risky route I would make a flash game that put you in charge of the starbucks corporation and try to put a Starbucks on every block. As your coffee empire expanded you could affect the community around you by turning everyone into caffine addicts and then cut off their supply and watch the chaos.
I don't really know because to be honest these games are not very complicated.