Chris Crawford on Game Design

A Record-Setting Blunder

I had just committed one of the worst—and most common—mistakes in game design: I had built a technology and then went in search of a game. “Let's get some code up and running, then we'll get to designing the game!” I can smile indulgently at my younger self, as I was probably the first game designer in history to make that mistake. With all the experience we've developed in the 25 years since that day, you can't justify such self-indulgence.

I didn't realize the error of my ways at the time; indeed, my evil twin insists that everything came out fine in the end, and so there's no reason to dwell on it. But I'm not so confident that Legionnaire was a solid design; I'll explain some of those design problems later. For now, ...