Game design

Just a quick shout out that I loved the Douglas Adams quote at the begining.

This reading seemed pretty simple, though very effective. It was all about game design. She went over basic concepts in game design, presented ten rules she felt a designer should follow and gave a lot of advice to aspiring designers. We have used some of this vocabulary in class and  I knew a lot of it from learning about video games over the years. But it was good to sit down and read a well written piece about the basics of game design. There was also a lot I didn't know in here. I enjoyed the different tid-bits in the reading, like the reality checks.

There was a lot of useful information in this reading, but I don't feel I'll understand all of it until I start trying to apply it to creating my own games. Difficulty levels, on the one hand, make perfect since. But how do I actually make a game more or less difficult? How can I get a player to play my game, let alone replay it? I guess it's just the idea of seeing something on paper and actually putting that information to use. I found her rules interesting to read and I think they made sense, but I don't think that's a decision I can make until I start making games, either.