Where you say "elegant" I would sometimes say "simple" instead, not in the sense of crude or basic, but in the sense of plain, easy, ordinary, or uncomplicated. Simple things are complete and contained within themselves.
Dunnigan wrote a whole wonderful book on the art and craft of wargaming, in which he said: “It is very difficult to keep a game design project simple. Once you get going there are tremendous temptations to add this and add that. A game design is a very dynamic activity. It soon acquires a life of its own, asking questions and providing parts of answers. The game designer is sorely tempted to go deeper and deeper. Without some years of experience and a high degree of professional discipline it is extremely difficult to do an unsimple game that is not a truly incomprehensible one.
For a game is, in addition to being a source of information, also a form of communication. If the information cannot be communicated, the game does not work. You've got to keep it simple. ”
To make this sound more profound than it actually is, here is a quote by the pilot and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery from his book Wind, Sand and Stars (1939):
“...It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this end, to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship's keel, or the fuselage of an airplane, … there must be the experimentation of several generations of craftsmen. In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”
Thanks for this, Brian. The temptation to add is always there. Great reminders to designers of all kinds that simple is analogous to “communicable”.
I’m slowly learning that games exist above the table just as much as on it - that is, adding more rules by no means guarantees a more interesting, satisfying and enjoyable experience.
Perhaps you should play more badly designed, cumbersome and needlessly complicated games as a form of aversion therapy!
I got into designing games because no one was publishing games on the kind of topics I wanted to explore, so I started to do it myself. Whether I have done this any more elegantly than someone else would have remains to be seen; I'm prepared to believe the answer is "no."
Where you say "elegant" I would sometimes say "simple" instead, not in the sense of crude or basic, but in the sense of plain, easy, ordinary, or uncomplicated. Simple things are complete and contained within themselves.
Dunnigan wrote a whole wonderful book on the art and craft of wargaming, in which he said: “It is very difficult to keep a game design project simple. Once you get going there are tremendous temptations to add this and add that. A game design is a very dynamic activity. It soon acquires a life of its own, asking questions and providing parts of answers. The game designer is sorely tempted to go deeper and deeper. Without some years of experience and a high degree of professional discipline it is extremely difficult to do an unsimple game that is not a truly incomprehensible one.
For a game is, in addition to being a source of information, also a form of communication. If the information cannot be communicated, the game does not work. You've got to keep it simple. ”
To make this sound more profound than it actually is, here is a quote by the pilot and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery from his book Wind, Sand and Stars (1939):
“...It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this end, to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship's keel, or the fuselage of an airplane, … there must be the experimentation of several generations of craftsmen. In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”
Thanks for this, Brian. The temptation to add is always there. Great reminders to designers of all kinds that simple is analogous to “communicable”.
I’m slowly learning that games exist above the table just as much as on it - that is, adding more rules by no means guarantees a more interesting, satisfying and enjoyable experience.
Perhaps you should play more badly designed, cumbersome and needlessly complicated games as a form of aversion therapy!
I got into designing games because no one was publishing games on the kind of topics I wanted to explore, so I started to do it myself. Whether I have done this any more elegantly than someone else would have remains to be seen; I'm prepared to believe the answer is "no."