There's a lot of attempts to describe decision space out there. My approach is player forward as opposed to game forward. After all, decisions happen in the brain not on the table. Like a lot of topics, I first started thinking about decision space as something that could be themed better. I am the "X ALL THE THINGS!" meme for theme.
I'm not confident in my definitions of logic and strategy. I'm just doing my best to say that planning exists on a somewhat different level than basic logic.
I'm always fascinated by the crossover of language between game design and other arenas. Most often that's theatre or visual art, but in this episode it's feminism. The only times I encounter the term agency are in feminist discussions (bodily autonomy, film criticism, etc) and board games. This is even more interesting when looking at the demographics of game designers. Bears discussion, I'm just saying.
We need to pay more attention to players as a design resource. Not as playtesters, but as a design element. Dynamics between players create so much of a game's experience. Decisions are a foundational element of games.
This episode came from a Tabletop Network topic that I'm just realizing never made it as a blog post. That talk focused on theming the decision space, but used the same structural breakdown as this episode.
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