Chris Crawford on Game Design

Language

Balance of Power first brought up the problem of language. The headline generator started me thinking in terms of sentence structure as a means of representing the game state. At first, I missed the mark: I thought of sentence structure as merely a clever means of expressing the state of the game rather than the events taking place in the game. Conventionally, game states are represented with little bar graphs or icons. In Doom, for example, the state of health of the player is depicted with a small iconic face showing varying degrees of health. The player on the brink of death is shown with head hanging and blood dripping from the nose. I myself have used such methods in many of my games. So I was quite pleased with myself for dreaming ...