Player Engagement & Motivation

Affordances - How Design Teaches Us Without Words

Aspirational Play - Adding a Sense of Wonder to Game Design

Bartle's Taxonomy - What Type of Player are You?

Depth vs Complexity - Why More Features Don't Make a Better Game

Differences in Scale vs Differences in Kind - Keeping Players Interested

Energy Systems - How Casual Games Suck You In

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic - Designing Good Rewards in Games

Making Better RPG Classes - What Makes a Class Classic?

More Ways to Use Randomness - What is the Goal of RNG?

Pacing - How Games Keep Things Exciting

Progression Systems - How Good Games Avoid Skinner Boxes

Social Difficulty Curve - Easing Players into Communication

When Difficult Is Fun - Challenging vs. Punishing Games