April 2018
Beginner
476 pages
14h 4m
English
The concept of gameplay balancing goes far beyond the qualities of individual objects and characters, and into the nature of play itself. Take a look at the classic example of a flawed game design, tic-tac-toe. Why is it flawed? The starting player can never lose. All they need to do is put their mark in the middle. This is a failure of both the design of the rules and the game's balance itself. The game has a single, dominant strategy, and once you figure it out or run into it, you're incentivized to replicate it. The presence of a dominant strategy drastically reduces a player's options. Once introduced into the play pattern, the game loses most of its appeal. Therefore, a wide possibility space is a defining feature ...