Game Design – Are There Really Any Rules?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 5, 2010

Way back when, I wrote a post about the “rules of game design” – at least the few that I’d managed to pull out of a few years of working in the AAA games business. Since writing I have now put another three years into mainstream professional games development, and several years into being an “indie evangelist.”

And with even more hindsight, I guess I should ask this question: “Are there really any rules?”

The games business goes by a number of rules of thumb that are actually pretty dang useful. The problem is that they tell you what, but not always why. And the guys in the suits who really don’t know what’s going on, but are acutely aware that their investors want to know what’s going on, tend to abuse those poor little heuristics as if they were scripture.

One of the awesome things I’ve learned from indie game development is how malleable those little rules really are. Even in mainstream – it’s the games that break those rules – but in the right way – that end up being great. Maybe they don’t end up becoming big hits, but they do end up being cult classics with passionate fans.

I guess there are still some good general guidelines and rules-of-thumb that can be considered “rules” – and most good game designers out there know when and how to break them (if they don’t have to answer to someone who doesn’t).  And there are a heck of a lot of bad game designers who break ’em regularly without thinking about ’em (which is why Earnest Adams has his big “Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie” database).

So – as a player – what are the things that really bug you repeatedly about games that you feel there OUGHT to be a rule against it (and penalties to game designers for committing it)?

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