Design Principles
This is both a test of how to use a wiki by doing, and an attempt to propose some basic ideas about game design. For now, I'm just going to list a couple things:
Playability:
The first consideration is playability - not how playable "I" think it is, but how playable others find it. Playability is not the only consideration, nor necessarily the most important, but my belief is that it should be the first consideration.
Simplicity:
By this I mean making each part or aspect of any game as simple and easy to understand as possible: simple words, simple sentences, simple examples, and simple steps from one point to another. Game play that is very complex can be presented in a simple, easy to understand manner, the simpler the better.
This is enough for starters.
The following was added by DavidHowe:
Here's a summary of what Mark Thompson feels makes a good game:
Depth:
In essence, how many different levels of expertise could the game support.
Clarity:
How easy is it to form a judgement on how good a particular move is.
Drama:
How possible is it for a player in a weaker position to recover and win the game.
Decisiveness:
How possible is it for a player to achieve a position from which it is impossible for the opponent to win.
I guess these would go under the "playability" consideration. In any case, for the full text of Mark's essay, see the page on his site: Defining the Abstract.
There is a range that starts at Deterministic and ends at Random.
A deterministic game has no random elements and requires only the choices of the player to resolve the conflicts in the game. Chess (aside from colour choice) and rock, paper, scissors are deterministic games.
A random game is a game where the winner is determined exclusively by chance and have no player choices. Cutting a deck for high card and High Roll is an example of such a game (players roll dice and the highest wins)
Most games lay in the middle.
There is a maxim of game design that states that bad players will play longer if the game is closer to Random and good players will play longer if a game is deterministic. The reverse is that good players will tend to stop playing games that are too random and bad players will stop playing games that are too deterministic. There is a sweet spot, somewhere in the middle, that allows bad players to occasionally win through luck (which the good player can accept) and the good player can normally win through skill.
Chess vs Rock, Paper, Scissors
John, you raise an interesting question of what randomness is, and if hidden information imparts some randomness to a game. The common versions of chess have no hidden information. Players alternate turns and can see the state of the board and pieces before, during, and after each piece is moved. Paper, scissors, rock has hidden information: each turn, you do not know what your opponent is doing on that turn, as both play simultaneously. The best ["mixed"] strategy is to play each about 1/3 of the time [from what I just recently read, anyhow]. This is a statistical strategy, different than the strategy used in chess, and indicative of possible randomness in the system. Or would you argue that there is hidden information in chess: the opponent's reply to your move, and it also introduces some seeming randomness into the game, considering that chess openings are statistically based. This would come somewhat close to saying that sequential and simultaneous movement games are the same, I suspect.
Joe