Start Here

Welcome! This site is home to a series of short, practical essays about game design, exploring the underlying principles and psychology behind successful games. If you’re new, this page will help you decide where to start.

These essays are a good place to start:

The Cure for Downtime Is Emotional Investment, Not Frequency of Choices

Every Unsolicited Resource is a Goal

(Links will be updated as new essays are published)

What I write about

My work tends to revolve around several recurring themes:

  • Side Effects/Externalities: Actions taken to achieve a goal can create new opportunities and costs, or externalities, for players. This helps new players learn the game and maintains a state of flow.
  • Foreshadowing: For a game to feel fair, players need to know what to expect next, or at least believe that they could have known in principle.
  • Nonlinear Rewards: Our brains are wired to pay attention when rewards greatly exceed our expectations. Leveraging this bias greatly improves the appeal and replayability of games.
  • Upkeep Reduction: Effort without adequate reward is the sludge that makes games feel like more trouble than they are worth. Eliminating upkeep is an easy way to make any game feel more worth a player's time.
  • Attention Budgets: Players have a limited supply of attention to spend within a game. Managing this budget is essential to avoid frustration, disengagement, and analysis paralysis.

How to navigate this site

  • Home - the main stream of writing, newest first
  • Start Here - introduction for new readers
  • About - who I am and why I started this site
  • Newsletter - subscribe for email updates