Theory of Fun for Game Design
Thinking is, in fact, mostly memory, pattern-matching against past experiences.
Raph Koster • Theory of Fun for Game Design
the more rigidly constructed your game is, the more limited it will be.
Raph Koster • Theory of Fun for Game Design
If I asked you to describe how you got to work in the morning in some detail, you’d list off getting up, stumbling to the bathroom, taking a shower, getting dressed, eating breakfast, leaving the house, and driving to your place of employment. That seems like a good list, until I ask you to walk through exactly how you perform just one of those ste
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The second level of the brain is really slow. It’s integrative, associative, and intuitive.
Raph Koster • Theory of Fun for Game Design
I don’t need a degree in automotive engineering to drive my car. I don’t even need to understand torque, wheels and how the brakes work. I don’t need to remember the ins and outs of the rules of grammar to speak grammatically in everyday conversation. I don’t need to know whether tic-tac-toe is NP-hard or NP-complete* to know that it’s a dumb game.
Raph Koster • Theory of Fun for Game Design
Game theory is about how competitors make optimal choices, and it’s mostly used in politics and economics, where it is frequently proven wrong.
Raph Koster • Theory of Fun for Game Design
Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun. In other words, with games, learning is the drug.*
Raph Koster • Theory of Fun for Game Design
As we age, we think that things are more serious and that we must leave frivolous things behind.
Raph Koster • Theory of Fun for Game Design
Given that we’re basically hierarchical and strongly tribal primates,* it’s not surprising that so many of the basic lessons taught by our early childhood play are about power and status. Think about how important these lessons still are within society, regardless of your particular culture. Games almost always teach us tools for being the top monk
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Fun comes from “richly interpretable” situations.