I'm
hard at work on the
second chapter of "Medical Problems," and I'm still finding it
interesting to think about games from the designer's perspective and
not the player's. Though the first thing I've learned about
thinking
from the designer's perspective is to spend most of my time thinking
from the player's perspective. :-)
I've played games where the
designer seemed more interested in showing off than in creating an
experience that would be fun for the player, and I don't want to fall
into that trap. I want to show off in ways that ARE fun for
the
player. :-) But seriously, people are giving you their time
and
attention when they play your game, even if -- as in the case of
"Medical Problems" -- they aren't giving you any money.
People's
time
and attention are valuable commodities, and you have to reward that
gift
with something equally valuable: fun. I've made a
couple of
things
that I thought would be cool, then scrapped them, because I realized
that although they'd be cool, they wouldn't be FUN.
Not
that a fun game can never
have sad moments or slow moments. A
one-note song is painful to listen to. But if you're going to
make the
player sad or make the player work, then you have to reward the player
for experiencing those things by giving them something that's worth
what they've experienced.
I'm just a beginner, and I understand
that. I wish more
of the people who made the games I try to play did.