How do I make my game FEEL like 60 FPS?

Not sure if this question is exactly for this forum, as it's a bit more general. But here goes.

My game, according to the debugger, runs at 144 FPS (which is also my laptop's refresh rate).

But it doesn't FEEL like it, doesn't even feel like 60.

I've been gaming all my life, so I have a good sense of what 60 feels like. Not a brag, I just do, as I'm sure most here do.

And I'm wondering:

1. Does the debugger say it's 144 because it CAN be 144 but on the preview window / browser it just can't reach anywhere near those numbers?

or

2. Is there some kind of secret sauce that makes a game feel like 60 FPS that I'm unaware of?

For example my animation for the main character only runs at a pace of 5 a second. That might be part of it.

But still, the character and other elements move every tick, so they should be moving at a pace of 144 a second? Why doesn't it feel like it? And do games that look smooth have extremely detailed animations with many frames? What's the secret sauce?

Thanks

Having 144 frames of animation per second would be a good start.

Besides that, position wise you should be able to tell a difference. A simple way to confirm would be to record motion at 60 fps and play it next to your preview that's running at 144fps.

Appreciate your response oosyrag. I still feel like there's something I'm missing here, so would be happy to get more ideas.