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[Michaël Samyn]

What's best?
A game that is easy to complete in one playthrough
or
a game that requires several replays to discover all its elements?

The former leads to a rich user experience that is not interesting to repeat and that may get boring because of constant stimulation. The latter to a sort of frustration that causes an ongoing desire to play the game, with the risk that players will give up before they have found some very nice elements.

Or: should the game include systems that help the player to transform the latter into the former? By means of tips, maps, guide systems, a detailed manual, etc.

[Melly]

Depends on the experience you want to give the player. One approach is not better than the other and there are as many people that prefer one as there are people the prefer the other.

[Skofo]

Blargh. This is almost like one of those horribly illogical Game Maker Community "[Thing A] vs. [Unrelated Thing B]" threads like "Gameplay vs. Graphics" or "Platform games vs 3D isometric RPG games".

You seem to think that it's only one or the other, which is not true. Why not have one or more "easy to complete" playthroughs, and for people that want to see more of the game an extra "hard" playthrough or a few? You seem to assume that players never give up before they even finish their first playthrough, which would also make them miss out on some "nice elements", so above everything I'd make sure that my game is actually interesting to play the first time. But really, what's the harm in including multiple endings and storylines? Of course the lesser interested people are going to miss things by not playing your game again, but so what? I think that you should think about the people that will really enjoy your games more than the ones that won't. I personally enjoyed the multiple endings in every game I have ever played. I think the multiple endings of Cave Story, Clocktower and Metal Gear Solid enhanced them a pretty fair amount.

Pretty much all you're asking here is "Should I be cool and give my game a significant amount of depth and attention or should I be lazy and make my game linear and easy?" I believe that in the end, it's all up to the creator's personal preference, JohnyZuper.

[Robotacon]

I like my single player games to be a one time experience and multi player games to have replayability.

[Valter]

Replayability is best when it's optional. Having items that you can't get in the first run through is a bad idea. Having classes with different skills that you can try out after beating the game once is a good idea.

[Knightmare]

I'm kind of mixed on that one.  Some games, I could play over and over again, and never get tired of them.  But others, I can only play through once.  Even games that I find kinda difficult I play through multiple times.  So I guess it just depends on the game?   

[brog]

A game is far more valuable to me if I'm going to want to play it more than once.  It's also better if it provides a challenge, rather than being easy to complete.

So I would be inclined to go with the second option.  However, I'm not sure what you mean by "discover all its elements".  A game can have all its rules visible on the surface and still have replay value - see Chess or Go for example.  There doesn't need to be anything explicit that you need to play multiple times to discover, but still you can be learning more about the deeper strategies of the game after many many plays.

If you want replayability though, don't make it take fifty hours to play.  Keep it reasonably short, so players can clearly grasp how their decisions had an effect on the outcome and think about what they might try differently next time.

[increpare]

Interesting thread.  Others have already said substantial things, but here're my two cents:

For me, I tend not to like games that require several gameplays to discover everything.  Or rather, I tend not to replay games.  Unless they're short.  Replaying a game from scratch is a major commitment when it's lengthy (when it's short none of my criticisms apply.  The various games on ludomancy exhibit this quite well).  One alternative would be to have the game 'open up' when it is completed, where all the other possibilities that one missed can be explored, or where extra-hard variants of levels are revealed, with maybe a couple of more incentives.  This gives closure to players who wish to leave things there and then (in the knowledge that they can go and experience more of the game at any time without having to replay it from scratch).

Personally, if I was making a game that I would expect people to play several times, I would feel obliged to really make the content dense, to avoid the likelihood of exact repetition in any section of the game, maybe introduce some procedurally-generated elements, &c..

[skaldicpoet9]

Replayability is like the gift that keeps on giving. Seriously, I have been playing Morrowind for the better part of 4+ years now and it still retains some of what drew me to it in the first place. The shear amount of mods that are available out there are more then enough to keep me occupied. Now with that being said I don't have a problem with games that don't have as high of a replay value as others as long as the gameplay is engaging and the game itself is well crafted on the whole. The problem that I have with games that have little to no replay value is the fact that they are often times still priced comparably with games that offer much more. I can't bring myself to spend $50 on a game that I will only play for less than 10 hours.

[Alex May]

the answer is you can have both.

[increpare]

the answer is you can have both.

That's true.  The only point where a dichotomy arises is where you have performance-rewarded gameplay.  If one focuses, for instance, on richness-of-content no troubles need emerge.

[Gnarf]

Would you mind expanding on what you mean and that, Zuper? I hope you're being misunderstood. Liek sirrisly, this isn't about multiple endings in console RPGs is it?

A game can have all its rules visible on the surface and still have replay value - see Chess or Go for example.

I'd like to think that's what Zuper meant with the requiring several replays thing. You're not going to get the full experience of chess from your first horrible loss. You won't have discovered all its element. Because it's like deep and so on.

[brog]

A game can have all its rules visible on the surface and still have replay value - see Chess or Go for example.

I'd like to think that's what Zuper meant with the requiring several replays thing. You're not going to get the full experience of chess from your first horrible loss. You won't have discovered all its element. Because it's like deep and so on.

Like I said, I'm not exactly clear on what he means by an "element".  I'd understand it to mean something specifically put in by the designer, as opposed an emergent property of the rules.  In the Chess example, an "element" would be a piece, and the beginning player has a full understanding of how all the pieces behave, but they could spend a lifetime discovering new things to do with them.
On the other hand, in Cave Story you have to play through multiple times to get all the weapons.  This is the kind of thing I understood the OP to mean, especially with his talk of manuals and guides.  I might be wrong.

I'll take the Chess kind of replayability over the Cave Story kind any day.

By the way, I don't think this isn't a single/multi-player distinction.  Rogue has a quite simple, easily-understood ruleset, but immense depth and replay value.

[Hajo]

Rogue has a quite simple, easily-understood ruleset, but immense depth and replay value.

Rogue and its descendants' replayability heavily stems from randomized levels and items. And on top of that, some roguelikes have a gazillion of ways to combine items - that is more related to the replayability of chess, a whole lot of possible combinations.

Neither of them contradict the easy gameplay, so I very much agree with the former posters who told "you can have both." One really can.

[Gnarf]

Like I said, I'm not exactly clear on what he means by an "element".

Yeah, I know. And me neither. All I meant was that I hope this is about the chess kind of replayability. Apologies if it came across as some pointing out that you were horribly wrong kind of thing.

[Seth]

I like my single player games to be a one time experience and multi player games to have replayability.

I feel the same, but when I replay a single player game I want it to be because everything I've already seen is just so damn strong, not because it'll be slightly different.

[brog]

Rogue and its descendants' replayability heavily stems from randomized levels and items.

I think replayability through randomness is very similar to replayability through intelligent opponents - you can think it as a game between two players, one making the levels and the other playing through tham, and a random level generator is an AI for the level-making player.

And on top of that, some roguelikes have a gazillion of ways to combine items - that is more related to the replayability of chess, a whole lot of possible combinations.

This is not a good comparison in my opinion.  The different combinations in chess arise from simple rules, those in Nethack arise from thousands of special case rules.
But still, even when all the rules of Nethack are fully understood people still find replay value in it, so it has both kinds of replayability.

[agj]

I don't like it when games cater to my OCD. I don't want to spend hours punching monsters to get all the freaking items. I don't want to grind and grind.

A game should be replayable on its own merits. If the only reason I'm replaying it is to get that worthless secret trinket, it's not really worth it.

Actually, I don't want a game to demand 15+ hours of my life. If it's so amazing I want to speng 15+ hours with it, cool. Don't force me to spend that long with it just because I feel the need to get closure by watching the ending. You know, no matter how terrible the movie is, I always have to watch it through to the end, but at least that won't set me back more than a couple of hours. Games, now? Tens of hours.

[Tanner]

Kirby is the perfect example of combining both of these elements.

[Michaël Samyn]

One alternative would be to have the game 'open up' when it is completed, where all the other possibilities that one missed can be explored, or where extra-hard variants of levels are revealed, with maybe a couple of more incentives.  This gives closure to players who wish to leave things there and then (in the knowledge that they can go and experience more of the game at any time without having to replay it from scratch)

That sounds like a nice compromise, in my opinion. The best of both worlds. That would compensate for the feeling of disappointment that players might have when they realized they have missed a lot of things in their first playthrough.

Of course this requires that it should be easy enough to complete the game once. That it is not required to discover everything in the game to do that.

I agree that we shouldn't count on people completing the game even once. So, perhaps, the game should start "opening up" even before the first playthrough is complete. The risk is of course that you then destroy the joy that some players find in the challenge that the game offers.