Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
you get that across in a way that feels honest and true to players? How do you decide when to
try to adapt to players' expectations and psychology to try to elicit feelings of fun or persua-
sion, and when do you stop doing that in favor of holding on to your own expressions and
just ask players to listen? If you're inviting more open contributions to the conversation from
players, how do you help them become conversant enough with our vocabulary to say some-
thing interesting in reply? Can we create space for a player to tell their own stories and express
themselves in the space of a game, while also conveying what we have to say?
The brightest and most passionate game designers in the world continue to struggle with
these questions because it's exciting to explore a space with so much possibility that remains
untapped. Although there are no definitive answers, the next few chapters share plenty
of ideas about and around these questions. Maybe you'll come up with some of your own
answers.
Twenty years after I started experimenting with
Lode Runner
, I had a job designing games
and
another 10-year-old sister in my family. When I went home for the holidays one year, I brought
my youngest sister one of the games I'd been working on. She was delighted and played it for
weeks, mastering the intricacies of its system. She talked to me about it, asked me for help, and
showed me her strategy. Inside the game, around it, and beyond it, we had a conversation.
