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Games must be fun to play. Sure, we like pretty graphics and a good plot, but the fun's the main thing. If they're fun, a lot of incongruities can be forgiven. Go ahead, try to explain why the yellow circle loves dots and why the ghosts are out to get him, or why the frog needs to get across the road. You can't. Doesn't matter.
This was most evident of the very early days of video games, when technological constraints put a limit on the amount of depth or detail a game could have. Back then, designers made sure a game was fun first, then devised a reason later. Besides, all games are basically just a bunch of colliding rectangles anyway -- why get too worked up about what the designers decided to cover up the rectangles with?
Of course, this also applies to non-video games. It's possible to create a Tabletop RPG that emulates a medieval swordfight down to the smallest detail -- but not many people would find that fun; thus, we have Hit Points.
A nonsensical premise, a bizarre story, weird gameplay mechanics -- all of these things have no choice but to bow their head if the game is fun. This is the Rule Of Fun. See also the MST3K Mantra, the Rule Of Cool, and the Rule Of Funny.
The Rule Of Fun extends to game design, as well as game play: Most MMORPGs must balance what's fun with what's practical, at least in terms of game mechanics, and woe to the game that can't find that delicate balance.
Tropes that exist partially or totally due to the Rule Of Fun:
Examples:
- The Mario series is essentially based off this trope. The original concept was that of a carpenter named Jumpman saving a beautiful lady from
King Kong Donkey Kong by jumping over barrels. This was evidently decided to be too unrealistic, so the designers decided the carpenter would actually be a plumber called Mario, the beautiful lady would be a princess kidnapped by a giant fire-breathing turtle, and the plumber would become larger by eating mushrooms, shoot fireballs by collecting flowers, and harness the power of those famed aeronauts, tanuki, to fly. The later games in the series (particularly the Paper Mario subseries) have mercilessly lampshaded the series's bizarre origins.
- Many early games, as documented above.
- The biggest modern example is the Katamari Damacy series. It's best not to think too hard about that premise, really. Just roll the ball already.
- Any game wherein the villain tries to Take Over The World by means of some ridiculous activity, like go-kart racing (Diddy Kong Racing), card games (Yu-Gi-Oh), Mons-training (Pokemon), or a martial arts tournament (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, et al.)
- What about pinball? Im pretty sure at least one pinball game involves the Big Bad trying to take over the world through a pinball tourney. (the only one that comes to mind is, and I havent played in in forever so forgive me if I'm wrong, Sonic Pinball Party
- The Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney series is based off a complete bastardization of any fair and just legal system, wherein a single line of false testimony from a barely credible witness can completely screw your client, but that's okay -- more fun that way! Objection!
- In Space Channel 5, you play a TV reporter who's fighting off an alien invasion. The aliens haven't come to talk, though. They've come... to dance! Only by shaking your booty can you thwart the hordes of colorful rubbery aliens.
- In the popular flash game Insaniquarium you have to feed your fish. Because they poop money. Oh, and you'll need that money to upgrade a laser cannon to defeat some evil aliens. Naturally the aliens want to eat your money-pooping fish. Goes without saying, really.
- In the Nintendo DS game Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Japanese cheerleaders help people complete all kinds of tasks, from getting into a good college to fighting giant monsters to saving the world, by rooting them on to a selection of J-pop and J-rock hits.
- The Sonic The Hedgehog series is (or at least was before Sonic Syndrome struck) about a hedgehog with superpowers who saved small woodland animals from being turned into killer robots by an evil fat man with a robot fetish. Said hedgehog, with the help of some Green Rocks, can also apparently go Super Saiyan. At its peak, this series matched the popularity of Mario and Zelda.
- Super Smash Bros. is probably the distilled personification of this trope. Why are an electrically charged rodent, an Italian plumber, a speedy blue hedgehog and an elvish tunic-wearing hero duking it out with lightsabers on top of a spaceship? Because it's awesome!
- The intro to the original game contains an implication (that the game is basically a kid making his toys "fight") that you can either accept or ignore -- whichever is more fun.
- Then Brawl has "The Subspace Emissary", an expansive story mode that satisfies the Rule Of Cool.
- This troper suspects that 'kid with toys' explanation is implicit in all the games, with the kid growing up over the installments. In the original, the characters fight in a more-or-less standard beat-em-up format, Melee has an adventure mode that takes the fighter through a series of themed stages over the characters' home locations, and introduces 'trophies' to represent the characters. Brawl builds on this with subspace emissary, making the trophies part of an overarching storyline. All have a Master Hand, a White Glove Final Boss that seems to represent the link between the game and a real world.
- Actually, pretty much any crossover game is about the Rule of Fun (and Rule of Cool), it is not about the possibility that Ryu will fight off Wolverine, allied with Blackheart in order to face Apocalypse so he can finally defeat Cyber-Akuma, and prove he is the best fighter in the planet I Am Not Making Thisup . It's about how awesome it is and how fun it is to fight through Ryu and Blackheart.
- 1998's Grand Prix Legends was a classic example of a spectacularly non-fun game. On paper the idea of a driving game set in the 'sixties, with the promise of classic F1 cars and tracks, was tantalizing as it had never been done before. Unfortunately, the game was such a rigorous simulation that it was staggeringly difficult (even if you had a real driver's license) and virtually impossible to play competitively without hours and hours of practice. It was so tough that the paltry driver aids that were provided actually made it worse, since the only way to control the car was to shift manually and double de-clutch like a pro. It was even argued that before force feedback controllers came along the game was actually harder (if not as scary and dangerous) than the real thing.
- Tetris. Make the rectangles combine until they disappear. Then keep doing it until you lose. The reason? There are no reasons but that of attaining level 9.
- Level 19 in the 'hood
- Level 999 then Invisible Tetris in Japan.
- Dance Dance Revolution, in which the whole point of the game is to press the arrows at exactly the right time by dancing.
- Freelancer. Just ignore the grossly warped scale (entire planets only a few times bigger than a little starfighter!), enjoy the exquisite artwork, and play some good Old School Dogfighting.
- Command And Conquer: Red Alert 2 had such a nonsensical premise, a bizarre story, weird gameplay mechanics, strange history, and implausable science that trying to think about it too hard will make your head hurt. So, don't think about it, and have (a lot of) fun.
- Shigeru Miyamoto invoked this trope in an interview about Link's Crossbow Training. He said that firing a crossbow rapid-fire like a machine gun is very unrealistic, but he quickly decided he didn't care as long as it was fun.
- This troper invented the phrase "40mm repeating longbow" to describe one sword & sorcery videogame where arrows were coming off the bow faster than they were crossing the screen.
- Blast Corps. A damaged nuclear missile needs to take the most direct route to a safe demolitions site, but there are a bunch of cities blocking its path, so the player needs to destroy them all. Why do you get to choose which order to play the cities in? Why do you get a medal for destroying all the other buildings that weren't in the way? Why can't you fly the impervious mecha all over the place instead of having to use what amounts to a big pick-up truck for half the levels? And why can you spend all the time you feel like fiddling around with bonus levels, when the missile is always a few seconds away from crashing whenever you enter a mission critical city? And why isn't there anyone else to help you? Who cares, It's fun!
- Each and every game based on battle with firearms falls to this trope, mainly because of a prime rule of firearm combat that is casually dismissed or underused in these games: Cover. In firearm combat, your objective is to have the lest possible of your body exposed while having a clear shot at hostiles, in some cases, it is possible to completely avoid body exposition, and when it is, it should be abused. In shooting games in general, or you charge hard-headed into the enemy strafing to dodge their fire, or you do use cover, but not nearly as efficiently as common sense would dictate. Whenever cover is actually part of the game, the character will usually still expose 50% to 25% of his body to enemy fire, and so will the enemies. The reason for this is simple, real firearm combat is straining and somewhat repetitive and usually leads to depleted ammo or no real conclusion, as both parties stay hidden in cover and exposing only part of the head (if at all) when shooting and backing into cover when the hostile shoots, even if you try to take them when they're shooting there's so little exposed body that any hit is improbable. This kind of combat would be tedious in a game, so your character is usually given some uncanny resistance to bullets in order to allow you to charge into the enemies and the enemies will still expose themselves beyond reason even while in cover.
- This one seems to be averted increasingly frequently these days, specifically by Gears Of War which practically revolves around hiding behind cover and popping out to fire when the time is right. The game still makes itself fun by making your health regenerate, though.
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