Chris Crawford on Game Design

Asymmetric Combat

Once I had decided upon this fundamental asymmetry, it seemed natural to extend it to the combat system. Sure, both sides would be shooting at each other, but they didn't have to be shooting with the same weapons. Again, I'm rather pleased with the asymmetric system I came up with. The monster's gun, in keeping with its poor AI, simply shot as fast as it could. Because there was only one missile per player, I could show only one missile in flight at any given instant, so the rule was simple: Neither side could fire a shot while a bullet from its gun was still in flight. At close ranges, then, players could machine-gun each other, but at great distances, shots were few and far between.

Since this was imposed upon me by graphic ...