Creating, Saving, and Loading Tracks - HTML5 Games Most Wanted - page 63

Why levels are important
We want to take a closer look at the different types of games and how they are built up. There are
basically two kinds of game plays when it comes to browser games.
The ones build on certain levels, created by the maker, such as all the jump-and-run games, or,
for instance, Angry Birds .
Then there is the kind with unlimited levels, such as Doodle Jump . The levels are either
automatically generated by the machine or created by the user as part of the game play.
There are good reasons for each game play. Either way, when you think of a game for the browser there
are two major things that you want to consider.
You want the user to come back
You want the user to spend as much time on the game as possible
With those two key values in mind, you can see why you might want to confront the user with different
levels, which you have already created; that way the user has an ongoing challenge without having to
come up with interesting tasks for himself. Most users return because they don't want to leave with
unfinished business. But the obvious downside is that the levels will eventually run out—and you have to
spend a significant amount of time to create those levels.
This means that once a user plays through all your levels, you have a very hard time keeping him interested
in the game. So, the challenge is to find a way to keep the user interested. Games like World of Warcraft
accomplish this by giving the player the chance to interact with other players. But that's a very hard thing to
do in a browser game. You constantly need a lot of players playing the game at the same time.
Back to levels, you need a lot of interesting levels to keep the users happy. Since constantly creating good
levels is not an option, we have to look for another solution. Minecraft is a very basic game out of the box,
but it gives its players the option to be creative. Players can build stuff on their own; they can sort of make
their dreams a reality. And that opportunity makes Minecraft such a great game; players can be creative
on their own.
Allowing the user to be creative and to bring his own style into the game is the most valuable feature you
can offer. Now, if you also let him or her share her work—you scored.
Let's take Marble Run as an example. We have many users who keep returning to our page and building
tracks that are of no interest when it comes to length or trickiness. The tracks they have built are artistic
pieces. Take a look at the screenshot in Figure 4-3 to see a wonderful artistic track.
Of course, that was in no way our intention when we built this game, but it was greatly appreciated. So, we
basically gave the user opportunities to do what he wanted, and that made him stick around longer than
simply challenging him with a certain number of levels.