Guidelines for Strategy Game Design
A functional and lightweight game design manual by Level 99's D. Brad Talton Jr,
on how to create tense, dynamic, decision-driven games.
A functional and lightweight game design manual by Level 99's D. Brad Talton Jr,
on how to create tense, dynamic, decision-driven games.
A game can have a lot of decisions without offering a lot of strategy. When the right move is obvious or automatic, the decision isn’t meaningful.
Small and pointless decisions are tedious, and will bore players.
Meaningful decisions are those where a player is able to implement or advance their strategy in a significant way.
When a decision isn’t meaningful, look for ways to avoid it. For example, you could have a game where players build the terrain before play. But if the terrain building isn’t a significant strategic consideration for the player, it could just as easily be randomized, and no gameplay will be lost.