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I'm Winn Liu. Everybody can think of multiple games with challenging yet fun to play game mechanics, I’ll bet that you have a list of your own as well! But whenever I ask my friends what aspects of these challenging mechanics they find fun, no one can give me an answer.

So today, I will be breaking it down and showing you the steps to creating fun and challenging game mechanics.

Every game starts with its core game mechanics. A core mechanic is the main basis and foundation of a game. When people think of games, what they’re most likely thinking of is the core mechanics of a game.

Here are some examples:
Fortnite, to find weapons and materials on an island, fight with other players and be the last man standing.
Stardew Valley, To improve your farm by selling crops and resources, while improving your reputation in the community.
Celeste, Jumping and dashing on platforms to get from A to B.

It is important to keep your core mechanic clear and simple, as this will be the base of your game and making it too complicated will confuse and frustrate your players. As a rule of thumb, your game mechanic should be able to be simplified to a single sentence.

Now that you have your core game mechanics, you can slowly start to implement more mechanics on top of your game. Things like new abilities and power-ups, special enemies and new level designs.

Plants vs. Zombies does this very well. Every few levels, they will include a new plant and or a zombie with new abilities on top of the core mechanics. This allows for more complexity and gives the player new sparks of interest once they start to understand how to play.

Every five or so levels, a gimmick level is added where the rules of the game are completely different. This allows the players to feel a sense of freshness to the game right when things are getting stale.

Remember to take inspiration from other games. Mechanics from other games are there for a reason: because they work.

Another thing to keep in mind, be creative. Game mechanics are not straightforward rules, they are more of a guideline. Expand on the typical game mechanics and add one or two new mechanics. That allows you to be unique.

Celeste is your average platformer game, but it distinguishes itself by adding a singular mechanic, the dash ability. With this dash, the developers of Celeste were able to create new and unique ways to traverse through levels in which other platformers have never tried.

This is arguably the most important step because if the challenges lean too much on random chance (RNG), players will feel that the game caused them to lose which will make them frustrated and possibly quit the game.

Thus it is important to keep your rules and feedback clear and understandable at first glance.

I find that Mario platformer games balance challenge and simplicity very well. The height of a jump is determined by how long you press the button, this allows for the players who are more experienced to try for more complex solutions to the level.

Another way they allow experienced players to feel challenged is through their level design. The map itself caters to the regular audience and the way it caters to the experienced players is by giving them a power-up or reward that they can collect by going through a more challenging section of the map. If the player feels that the challenge is too difficult they can always jump back to the regular sections.

Now that we have a baseline of the mechanics, it is vital you test them, as the mechanic you were imagining to be challenging but fun may not translate to actual gameplay.

While your playtesters are playing your game, you may feel that you should teach them the basics, but please do not do that as you will bias them. If your playtesters can’t figure out how to play your game in the first 10 or so minutes then you should consider either improving your tutorials or simplifying your mechanics.

Remember to listen carefully to your playtester's feedback, even if you think that you already know about that issue. They may not be talking about the same issues you are thinking and by shutting them off you will be allowing that issue to continue living in your game. Observe your playtesters as well, it can help you to see where and when your feedback and tutorials may not be clear enough.

Having clear feedback is also another way of letting your players know that they are going in the right direction or that their skills have improved.

This feedback can be visual like arrows pointing in a certain direction, audio cues giving a player a hint, or my personal favourite: using objects and terrain to guide the player in a certain direction.

My final point for today is to allow for mastery of your game.

Let us delve deeper into the Mario platformer mechanics that we mentioned earlier. Letting players choose their difficulty through world and level design allows the player to visually see their skills improving. This encourages the player to practice and eventually master the mechanics of the game.

Another example of allowing for game mastery would be the Street Fighter franchise or any fighting game out there. Beginners may start only knowing a single gimmick move that works well against a player who doesn't know how to counter it. But as they gain more experience, they will learn new combos that can counter these gimmick moves which will also show them their progression in the game.

Creating a game with challenging yet fun mechanics can be a challenge in itself. But if you remember to properly define your core game mechanics and allow players to learn the controls of your game through world and level design. I can assure you that your game will almost certainly be challenging yet fun at the same time.

Thank you for reading through this blog post, I hope that these points were helpful in creating your game mechanics. If you have any questions about game design, feel free to contact me and I will do my best to reply.