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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4592248" data-attributes="member: 4937">Those are questions without single answers.Because different design theories lead to different types of games, and because different people enjoy games of different types no single design pattern can be objectively claimed to be better than the others.Take the example of, "How much influence should a designer exert over the game?"  A game design which sought to minimize how much influence the designer had over the game would create a sandbox game where the players produced significant portions of the game and could play the game in ways the designer never really imagined.  It would be like giving players a set of blocks and saying, "Make the game you like playing."  But this doesn't always produce a game that is enjoyable for everyone, and in particular one could argue that alot of the reason sandbox games became sandbox games was that the basic ruleset was so bad that it encouraged tinkering to try to fix it (whether 1st ed. AD&D, Monopoly, Carcasonne, etc.).The opposing strategy would be to create a very tight game with rules that were very specific to the game that the designer intended such that they made no sense outside of the context of the game and did not encourage tinkering.  But not everyone would enjoy this style of game either, and in particular it could be argued that the closer you adhered to this strategy the fewer games that actually existed in the game.  Such a game would be in some sense the opposite of playful, with little room for exploration and would therefore - however fun it might be played a few times - never be a lasting favorite.Or, more briefly, the question of what constitutes good game design can only be answered if you first define what you mean by 'good' and 'game'.</blockquote>

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