You Shouldn't Be Able To Upgrade Everything
Upgrades are a lot of fun. They provide players with a sense of progression and serve as a reward. They also give players a chance to reflect. An upgrade choice asks you what
Heuristics
Over the course of many games, players develop rules of thumb to automate low-level decision-making, allowing them to execute more sophisticated strategies. The process of learning and testing heuristics, or "climbing the heuristic tree," is a major factor in what makes games fun and replayable.
Creating Positional Heuristics Through Limits
Players develop two types of heuristics: positional and directional heuristics. Positional heuristics tell them how well they are doing, and directional heuristics tell them what to do next. You need to give players
Variable Player Powers Encourage Exploration
As game designers, we want our players to fully explore the games we create. But they sometimes ignore aspects of our games. In my game Sprocketforge, for instance, I often see new players
The Best Game Expansions Make You Rethink the Game
Much of the joy in playing games comes from climbing the heuristic tree. We encounter a new game and don't know what works, so we try different tactics and see better
How Galaxy Trucker Succeeds at Onboarding Players
Complex games live or die by how well they onboard players. Among other things, this means making sure new players have simple tactics they can latch onto before they understand the game, also