When people think of randomness, one of the first things that
spring to mind are games like Bitcoin dice where a dice is rolled and the results
influence whether you win or not. That idea though is kind of limiting. There
are several ways that randomness can be used to make a game more fun without
making it the main engine of a game. Here are a few examples how randomness has
been used to make a game better.
Randomly-generated objectives
The classic whodunit game Cluedo does this. A deck is shuffled and
players try to figure out which cards they hold. With five card of murderer,
murder weapon, and location, there are over 125 possible combinations. That’s
quite a challenge to narrow down to a specific set and can be an exciting game
to play. Additionally, this ensures that a game has a large replay value as the
randomness ensures no game can be the same.
Randomly-generated maps
The random factor has also helped increase the replay value of many
computer games. A lot of games use maps and locations. If there is a set level
design, then all a player needs to do is finish the game once to get a game’s
full experience. Randomly-generated map locations can change this. An excellent
example would be the Diablo series from Blizzard. A dungeon crawler where
players have to explore dungeons, the game creates a new dungeon for players to
explore every time they enter a new area. This keeps the game fresh and people
keep coming back.
Randomly-generated events