Twenty Lessons Learned

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I recently watched a GDC talk by Mark Rosewater and was amazed how good it was. He is predominantly talking about his experience with Magic the Gathering Card game, but the content can easily be used universally for any type of game.

 If you have a spare hour to learn some cool stuff, then check out the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHg99hwQGY

 Or, if you really want to get into it, then you can read the full article on magic.wizards.com:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/twenty-years-twenty-lessons-part-1-2016-05-30


Some of the points I could completely empathize with, and understand from my own experiences that sometimes being better isn't actually being better.  But a lot of them really made me scratch my head and think about game design in a brand new way. I still have a lot to learn.

 Here are the twenty main points he made. I'm sure this will come in handy in the future when working on the next game project!

  1. Fighting against human nature is a losing battle
  2. Aesthetics matter
  3. Resonance is important
  4. Make use of piggybacking
  5. Don't confuse interesting and fun
  6. Understand what emotion your game is trying to evoke
  7. Allow the player the ability to make the game personal
  8. The details are where the players fall in love with the game
  9. Allow your players to have a sense of ownership
  10. Leave room for the player to explore
  11. If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail
  12. Don't design to prove you can do it
  13. Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win
  14. Don't be afraid to be blunt
  15. Design the component for the audience its intended for
  16. Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them
  17. You don't have to change much to  change everything
  18. Restrictions breed creativity
  19. Your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them
  20. All the above lessons are connected!
Boo! Amazing stuff. I hope to utilize some of these in the future!

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