Designing Enjoyable Videogames: Do Heuristics Differentiate Bad from Good?

How does one design a fun video game? One way to guide design is through the use of heuristics. Federoff (2002) compiled a list of design heuristics based on the gaming literature and interviews with game designers. However, these heuristics were not validated. The present study attempted to validate these heuristics by having participants play either a lowly or highly rated PC game. Participants were asked to provide a rating of overall enjoyment and then rate the applicability of each heuristic. Analysis of 133 participants' ratings of overall enjoyment indicated that non-gamers felt both games were equally enjoyable while moderate and heavy gamers found the highly rated game most enjoyable. Further analyses indicated that participants considered approximately 75% of the heuristics to be more applicable to the highly rated game than the lowly rated one. The implications for the design of new video game heuristics are discussed.