The Ten Principles of Good Game Design
- Good game design is derivative. No sophisticated game design can actually exist as a novel construct; no tutorial is as good as the existing foundation of game playing and game culture your player is bringing to a design. The best design uses this as a tool to support complexity.
- Good game design is useless. Games can only exist within the magic circle of idleness, intrinsic motivation, and self-directed emotional engagement. The instant your game is meant to accomplish anything 'real' (play to earn, 'games for change', etc) it ceases to be good game design.
- Good game design is unaesthetic. Good game design creates space for the player to be jarred, for friction, for uneveness. Good game design does not allow smooth flow from one state to the next. Good play does not look like a good attract mode.
- Good game design is cryptic. The player should not instantly understand all of their affordances. Good game design unfolds over the course of the player's engagement with it, unveiling more of itself only with difficulty and coaxing. Good game design resists explanation and can only be grasped through direct experience.
- Good game design is obtrusive. Games must push back on the player. Games must include friction. A game is not a tool and it is not there to be easily manipulated by the player.
- Good game design is dishonest. The player is there to have their perceptions manipulated. Good game design embellishes; good game design makes a system seem more alive than it truly is. Good game design relies on apophenia and magician's tricks.
- Good game design is ephemeral. Games are much closer to a performance medium than we like to think. Good game design exists in its moment, in conversation with its immediate contemporaries.
- Good game design is loose and systemic. Fine-tuning every detail leads to madness on the developer side and to a feeling of inconsistency on the player side. Good game design allows for the 'productive jank' of unshaved edge cases.
- Good game design is wasteful. A great game has side paths most players will ignore, grace notes that are unnecessary, and other demonstrations of useless care.
- Good game design is as much game design as possible. Well, as long as you can hit your milestones.