What are the best ways to evaluate game mechanics for different genres?

1 Define your genre and audience

Before you can evaluate your game mechanics, you need to have a clear idea of what genre and audience you are targeting. Different genres have different expectations, conventions, and challenges for game design. For example, a puzzle game might focus on logic, creativity, and difficulty, while a role-playing game might emphasize story, character, and exploration. Similarly, different audiences might have different preferences, skills, and feedback styles. For example, casual gamers might want more accessibility, simplicity, and fun, while hardcore gamers might seek more depth, complexity, and challenge. Knowing your genre and audience can help you set your goals, criteria, and scope for your game mechanics.

2 Playtest with different methods

Evaluating game mechanics through playtesting with real users is an effective way to gain feedback, data, and insights on how they work in practice and affect the player's experience. Depending on your objectives, resources, and stage of development, there are different methods of playtesting you can use. Prototyping is a great way to test the feasibility, functionality, and fun factor of your game mechanics. Alpha and beta testing can help you assess their performance, balance, and quality. A/B testing can be used to compare two or more versions of your game mechanics to measure their impact on specific metrics. Analytics can help you collect quantitative data on how your game mechanics are used, while surveys and interviews can provide valuable qualitative feedback on how they are perceived.

3 Compare with similar games

Evaluating your game mechanics can be done by comparing them to similar games in your genre. This comparison can help benchmark your game mechanics against industry standards, trends, and best practices. It can also identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Depending on the focus, strategy, and differentiation of your game, comparison can be done with different criteria. These include core mechanics (the main actions and systems that define gameplay), secondary mechanics (additional actions and systems that enhance gameplay), tertiary mechanics (optional actions and systems that diversify gameplay), and aesthetic mechanics (visual, audio, and narrative elements that support gameplay).

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?