What is game feel?

Game feel (sometimes "juice") is the tactile, moment-to-moment sensation of playing — how satisfying it is to move, jump, hit, and collect. Two games can have identical rules but feel completely different: one feels crunchy and alive, the other feels flat and dead. The difference is feedback layered onto every action.

Crucially, feel is mostly independent of mechanics. You can add feel to a finished prototype without changing a single rule — it is a polish layer of responses (visual, audio, motion) on top of what already works.