Why Randomness Makes Games Better

By RookieDev

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Randomness can create tension, variety, replayability, and some really good decisions. It can also make the player feel like nothing they do matters. So what actually makes randomness work in a game? Randomness is everywhere in games. Damage ranges, critical hits, loot drops, card draws, enemy encounters, procedural generation, random maps, random rewards... even a small amount of uncertainty can completely change how a player approaches a situation. But randomness is also very easy to get wrong. Give the player too little control and their decisions start feeling pointless. Make everything predictable and eventually they may stop making decisions altogether. In this video, I wanted to look at what randomness actually does inside a game. Why does rolling a die feel different from drawing a card? Why can a 70% chance to hit create more tension than a guaranteed attack? Why do some random systems keep us playing for hundreds of hours, while others just feel unfair? And why do many games

Tags: game design, randomness in games, rng, rng in games, game development, indie game development, indie game dev, game designer, video game design, game design theory, game mechanics, probability in games, random systems, procedural generation, roguelike design, roguelite design, card game design, risk reward game design, player choice, game systems