Design : Design Criticism

This article on game design has been brought to you courtesy of John Garrison.

Game Criticism

Don't worry, post-deconstructionalism won't even come up. What we need are some tools to evaluate designs--some way to tell if they're good or not. Let's start with a checklist which could be used in designing a game and then try to make some concrete analysis of the entries.

Have a Hook
Be Interactive
Be Addictive
Have Good Replayablity and/or be Long
Have Rewards

Don't

Make the Player Wait
Make the Player Start Over
Have the Success of the Player Depend of Arbitrary Events.

Hook? What's this hook thing?

(To be continued...)

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Date this article was posted to GameDev.net: 7/16/1999
(Note that this date does not necessarily correspond to the date the article was written)

See Also:
Game Design