What is Game Feel?
By Zaid Al-Shaheed
Today I was reminded of Pacman Arcade, I remember how this game was one of the 2 addictive games my dad used to be obsessed with, the other one was tatris.
I remember how many hours unphased he could sit infront of the TV play the NES version of Pacman and then got hooked on Pacman 3D but always went back to play the original, and after so many years, playing so many games and learning about them while making them, and now looking at Pacman and realized how addictive this game is...
Pacman seemingly simple game to the regular casual player, it is the yellow ball, eating dots being chased by ghosts while running inside a maze, but when he eats the power dot (big dot) he can eat the ghosts.
you eat more dots and ghosts to collect more score, and there is the occasional fruit that you eat for a bigger score.
you finish the level, it loops but now the ghosts are faster.
Simple game loop simple description and nothing too big expansive, but why is it interesting till today,
we start with the player, the Yellow Dot, Pacman him self, the way he closes and opens his mouth,
the sound he makes when he eats the dots, when he is not eating the dots there is a sound like a police siren while he is running away from the ghosts like an outlaw.
and how the sound changes when he eats the power Dot, making the moment more significate, separating the power mode from the regular mode,
how the ghosts turn blue and run away from him,
when he eats the ghosts, he actually has a hit stop to give significances to the moment that he dominated the Ghosts accompanied but a chomp sound to emphasize that moment event further
then the eyes of the ghosts runs away to their lair.
and how the ghosts speed goes faster the less dots on the screen giving that sense of urgency to run! get the last dots before you are caught!
and when you do collect all the dots, the game just stops for a moment, fades and resets but now faster.
the timing, of all of those events, how the sound plays moment to moment gameplay, such a simple game RICH! with game feel.
imagine Pac man has no chomping sound when he eats the dots, no hit stop when he eats the ghosts, that alone will make the game feel much less.
simple things gave such significance to the game feel.
apart from how the game controls, and how the character move, game feel is a combination of elements to give that good feel moment, that ephoria when you are being chased by the ghosts and they are so close and you reach a power dot, and suddenly! the tables have turned! and you go back at them and chomp them one by one with that moment to moment hit stop and them running away to their lair in shame and afraid.
that combination made what pacman is, ticks every box in game feel, I might add a bit of screen shake to the ghost combo that you get a shake if you eat one ghost and then the shake gets more violent if you eat another and it goes on, that might have made the game event better.
Going back to my dad, He might have had a gambling addiction, but I think these elements looking at a lot of gambling machines, that carries all the the sounds and lights and building up to the great moment, all the loot boxes.
it was all implemented right into the game play which made the gameplay even more exciting, it created a very affected game feel.
Watching the arcade game play today made me realize that event the good old games has solid game feel that many games now days lacking.
maybe Pacman can be a tool to teach students more about game feel if it was not included in their study.
I personally believe Pacman is the best tool to introduce young game developers to game feel.
I hope this was insightful.
see ya on the next post.
