Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Lens of Triangularity

Giving a player a choice to play it safe for a low reward, or to take the risk a big reward is a great way to make your game interesting and exciting. Ask yourself these questions:

Do I have triangularity now If not, how can I get it?

Is my attempt at triangularity balanced? Do the rewards feel worth the risks?

Lens of Meaningful Choices

Meaningful choices let players feel like the things they do matter. Ask yourself these questions:

What choices am I asking the player to make?

Are they meaningful? How?

Are there any dominant strategies in my game?

Lens of Challenge

When examining the challenges in your game, ask yourself these questions:

What are the challenges in my game?

Are they too easy, too hard, or just right?

Is there enough variety in the challenges?

How does the challenge level increase as the player succeeds?

Lens of Goals

To ensure your game's goals are appropriate and well-balanced, ask yourself these questions:

What is the ultimate goal of my game?

Is that goal clear to players?

If there is a series of goals, do the players understand that?

Are my goals concrete, achievable and rewarding?

Do i have a good balance of short and long term goals?

Do players have a chance to decide their own goals?

Lens of Action

Think about what your players can and cannot do, and why. Ask yourself these questions:

What are the operative actions in my game?

What are the resultant actions?

What resultant actions would I like to see? How can I change my game in order to make that happen?

Am I happy with the ration of operative to resultant actions?

What actions do players wish they could do in my game, but cannot?

Lens of Emergence

To make sure your game has interesting emergent qualities, ask yourself the following questions:

How many verbs do my players have?

How many objects can each verb act on?

How many ways can players achieve their goals?

How many objects do the players control?

How do side effects change constraints and rules?

Lens of Dynamic State

Think about what information changes during your game, and who is aware of it. Ask yourself these questions:

What are the objects in my game?

What are the attributes of the objects?

What are the possible states for each attribute? What triggers the state change for each attribute?

What states are known by what players?

Lens of Functional Space

Think about the space in which your game takes place and ask yourself these questions:

Is the space of my game discreet or continuous?

How many dimensions does it have?

What are the boundaries of the space?

Are there sub-spaces? How are they connected?