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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8968235" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Remove enough from something and it ceases to be able to support anything else without a ton of heavy lifting.That's the fundamental problem with ultra-reductionism as a game design philosophy. People think &quot;less is more&quot; means &quot;the more you take away, the more you can do.&quot; That is not true. What the pithy phrase means is that you need to remember that rules are tools--they need to serve a function. If they are actually fighting against the function for which they were designed, then they should be changed or removed.Sadly, the facile reading--the idea that if you take something away it will always make things better--leads to a significant number of game design ills. You have to actually find a balance between &quot;enough structure to enable interesting interactions&quot; and &quot;not so much structure that it becomes unwieldy or opaque.&quot; Finding depth, which makes things fun and engaging, between the extremes of &quot;empty&quot;(/dull) and &quot;byzantine&quot;(/confounding) is one of the greatest challenges in game design.Unfortunately, right now we're in an age where reductionism is the name of the game and it's almost impossible to convince people that cutting things solely to cut things out is not actually a productive strategy.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8968235, member: 6790260"] Remove enough from something and it ceases to be able to support anything else without a ton of heavy lifting. That's the fundamental problem with ultra-reductionism as a game design philosophy. People think "less is more" means "the more you take away, the more you can do." That is not true. What the pithy phrase means is that you need to remember that rules are tools--they need to serve a function. If they are actually fighting against the function for which they were designed, then they should be changed or removed. Sadly, the facile reading--the idea that if you take something away it will [I]always[/I] make things better--leads to a significant number of game design ills. You have to actually find a [I]balance[/I] between "enough structure to enable interesting interactions" and "not so much structure that it becomes unwieldy or opaque." Finding [I]depth[/I], which makes things fun and engaging, between the extremes of "empty"(/dull) and "byzantine"(/confounding) is one of the greatest challenges in game design. Unfortunately, right now we're in an age where reductionism is the name of the game and it's almost impossible to convince people that cutting things [I]solely to cut things out[/I] is not actually a productive strategy. [/QUOTE]

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