To achieve this we have to stop thinking of games as their component parts, as a collection of mechanisms or a thematic experience or a narrative adventure. Games are more than the sum of their parts. Everything about a game shapes how players approach and experience it. And I mean everything.
The standards are obvious: mechanisms, art, theme, player personas. But everything else matters too. The physical components and how players interact with them. The rules and how they speak to the reader. The end game conditions shape how players think about the game’s outcomes. All of it matters.
I like to think of games as wholistic experiences that bring players into temporary social contracts that allow for the suspension of reality and the adoption of special rules. The meaning of a game is created in concert between the designer and all the players who will ever play it.
Isn’t that wonderful? Every time a group sits down to play a game, a new meaning will be created, just for that one fleeting instance of play. Play. Something else to remember. This is all play. We are exercising the most childlike of muscles, exploring the world through play.
I don’t have a grand point. Just these rambles about games and where we are as an industry. I hope for more weird, niche, interesting things to play. I hope to be challenged and pushed and confronted. I look forward to it.