There is certainly some debate on if bad games exist at all, especially from a dev perspective. Making a game takes some level of work, even if it’s a buggy mess, or gameplay aspects just hit wrong, or some other issue. I know the game I made for the GMTK jam is no work of art and I’m glad I finished anything at all in the timeframe that fit the theme remotely.
However, I wouldn’t call what I released there good. I’d agree with some of the more generous commenters that it’s certainly got potential with more work. If I was better with blueprints or game physics, it just might be ok. We can’t always judge a game on what might be, especially mine, I might never work on it again after all, it’s not like I’m a AAA live service with a roadmap to deliver on. It’s probably a bad game in some folks eyes, if it was any less playable than it is, I’d say for sure it was.
To get back to the point. There are a handful of games I try and I honestly don’t enjoy. Sometimes it’s because they’re buggy and a level of unplayable that I don’t spend more than a few minutes in them. Maybe the gameplay just doesn’t work for me, just full on hits wrong. I’ve certainly already talked about some games where I felt like they weren’t for me, and this goes beyond that.
I’ve considered giving my thoughts on them, but, I don’t really have to. One game from the last fest that I thought was terrible is leaning into it, having a look today as I considered talking about it. It’s still not going to be for me, though I could hope it fixes some of the core issues I ran into.
I don’t have to talk about these games though. I have considered if I should warn others about what might be a bad experience, but, I don’t really have to. Especially where I’m mostly talking demos here. This also means if I’m not enjoying something, I think I might tap out early and move on, given how bad my backlog with getting games played and actually written about gets. There are no shortage of games I enjoy to talk about.