Articles in the permanent category
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The Story Machine
One of the two methods of story telling in games. The game isn't designed with a specific story, but a unique one is generated each …
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Interest Curve
An Interest Curve refers to the guest's interest over time during an experience (game, book, movie etc). The ideal interest curve usually involves an initial …
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Goal Of A Game Interface
Schell says that the goal of a game interface is to "make players feel in control of their experience." 1
We achieve this with immediate …
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Lua Coroutines
Coroutines in Lua are related to Generators (Python). They allow a function to be written to return intermittantly using the
yield()function call on the … -
Doubling or Halving as a Game Balancing Technique
A game balancing trick that Schell attributes to design Brian Reynolds (who in term attributes to Sid Meier): when tuning values to balance a game …
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Meaningful Game Economies
Schell says that a game economy is defined as simply: how players spend and earn money. He says a successful game economy has meaningful answers …
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Emergent Complexity
The opposite of innate complexity (in which complex rules need to be learned in order to play) and a desired property of a game. Arises …
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Emergent Gameplay
Strategic actions that are "not part of the rules" but "that emerge naturally as the game is played". You can encourage emergent gameplay by adding …
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Variable Rewards
Schell says that "the power of variable rewards over fixed ones has been proven in thousands of psychological experiences" (though no experiments were referenced). The …