grapefrukt
12 HN recommenders · recommended in 19 months, 2013–2025
15:38 · 616K views · May 24, 2012
Martin Jonasson and Petri Purho take a bland Breakout clone and add layer after layer of 'juice' such as easing, particles, screen shake and sound until it feels alive. A live demo makes the effect of small feedback details obvious.
The go-to recommendation on game feel and polish, cited by HN as one of the best talks for anyone making interactive things feel good.
20 comments from Hacker News
"Juice it or lose it" is the best presentation I've seen on the matter. It's really funny and it clearly show how adding some bouncing or some particles can completely change the feel of a game (or UI) this video
People normally call that making it "juicy". There's this awesome presentation on YouTube showing how a boring game can look awesome with some "juiciness", even if the core gameplay is unchanged: this video
The talk juice it or lose, by Martin Jonasson & Petri Purho, is all about this. Gotta be one of the best talks for anyone trying to make things interactive that also feel good. this video
this video Here's the presentation. It's a pretty fantastic watch that shows what just a few small design decisions can do for a product's impressions on an audience.
Resources which helped me get started: "Challenges for Games Designers" by Brathwaite & Schreiber. This was by far the most helpful, as it laid out a process of finding & refining fun game ideas. "Game Feel" by Swink. Examines why jumping feels better in Super Mario than Donkey Kong, why Street Fighter feels the way it does, etc. This way of breaking down & examining mechanics was eye opening and can be applied to other kinds of games. lostgarden.com, especially [LINK] , which describes a process for rapidly iterating on ideas, and [LINK] , which introduced me to some of the fundamental building blocks of game mechanics. Resources which helped me later: I found "Art of Game Design" to be helpful later, when working on making a good game into a great game. The different lenses were great for finding areas where I could improve a game. this video really drove home how important polish is. This was useful after I had a game which was already a bit fun. Finally, an observation & a suggestion, if you're open to them: You admit that you don't know game design, yet you're attempting to innovate by removing limits. This seems like an enormous challenge for a beginner, like someone who doesn't know how to play an instrument attempting to make a new style of jazz. I think you'd have more success if you learned to play the instrument first: Practice by making a lot of small games. Spend 2-4 days on each, no more. Learn to use prototypes to explore the design space, searching for ideas with