Yuki Izumihara-Week 9

Josh was talking about, how to make the game interesting. And going along with that question, what makes the game re-playable?

What actually makes the re-playable?
For me, it seems like the game that has the strong character is more replayable than the game that has a great story.
I haven't played that many games, so it might be just be me that feel like this.

Great story does make me want to play the game at the beginning, but usually I play them only once.
There are several games that when you go through the story the second time, you can explore the backstory of the character, but even in that game, I only play 2 ot 3 times and don't go back.

Games like solitaire, minesweeper, tetris, and chess doesn't have a story, but has a strong(absolute) characters and people play them forever.
At the same time, all of these games has simple game mechanics and the game can be personalized (I cannot find a better word for this).
Whenever you play, it's either you win or lose, but each time, the game is different depending on your choice.

Is it the mini games that is not crucial to the story make the game re-playable?(collecting coins, stars, etc)
Or is it actually the story that brings you back to the game?
Or is it the immersive environment that you want to go back to?

We did talk about this at the first day of the class, but as we started making the game by ourselves, I started to think about it again.