Yearly Archives: 2012

Every piece of a game’s method must reflect the game’s object, unless that contrast is part of the game’s object.

A game’s method is defined as the manner in which a game conducts itself — the rules, actions, and objects that comprise play, and the way that they interact. A game’s object is the overall idea that the game serves to communicate. Whether or not the designer has considered the game’s message, by the act of playing the player will receive one.

Every action is a verb, and every object is a noun. The game tells a story by the manner in which every action happens to every object. Therefore everything that you ask the player to do, however minor, is a part of the message that you are communicating to the player. Taken as a whole, the most common behaviors over the course of play define the perspective that the game communicates to the player.

A videogame must communicate through game design alone, unless the information is incidental to the game’s object or method.

Avoid all exposition. If you can’t explain an idea through pure game design, then you need to rethink what you’re saying and why.

Every environmental cycle must introduce a new point of interest, unless the absence of that interest is part of the game’s object.

An environmental cycle is defined as a complete refresh of the player’s surroundings, be it one screen (in a 2D side-scroller) or the area between here and the middle distance (in a 3D game). The specific measurement differs from game to game according to its pacing, format, and spatial sense.

A point of interest is defined as a new concept, or a significant elaboration on a known concept. The concepts need not all be profound; they need only expand the player’s perspective on the game’s object or method.

A game must assume no prior knowledge, unless that act of knowing is part of the game’s object.

This principle extends to knowledge of prior game design, as well as to knowledge and experience beyond the medium. Of the two, the former is more of a fundamental problem.