Chris Kohler
Culture

Eight Things Designers Do To Screw Up Their Games

Civilization IV and Spore designer Soren Johnson, in his blog, has a fun read: a list of the eight biggest mistakes that game designers tend to make. The temptation to pile extra units and buildings and whatnot onto to an already complete design is strong. Indeed, I have seen many people describe games as simply […]

Screw_2Civilization IV and Spore designer Soren Johnson, in his blog, has a fun read: a list of the eight biggest mistakes that game designers tend to make.

The temptation to pile extra units and buildings and whatnot onto to an already complete design is strong. Indeed, I have seen many people describe games as simply a collection of stuff ("18 Weapons! 68 Monsters! 29 Levels!") Needless to say, this is a wrong-headed approach. A game design is a collection of interesting decisions, as Sid would say, and the "stuff" in the game is there not to fill space but to let you execute decisions. Games can provide too few options for the player but - more commonly - games provide too many.

8 Things Not To Do (Part 1, Part 2) [via GameSetWatch]