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Sid Meier's 10 Rules of Game Design
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Sid Meier's 10 Rules of Game Design
1. Choose a topic you have a passion for. Game Design is about creativity.
2. Do research after the game is done. Tap into the player’s brain.
3. Define your axioms, refine your axioms. Prototype, prototype, prototype; sit in all the chairs.
4. Double it or cut it in half. You are more wrong than you think.
5. Make sure the player is having fun, not the designer/computer.
6. Games should be easy to start playing, but hard to stop playing.
7. Simple systems work together to create complexity.
8. Make it ‘Epic’!
9. Most important part of the game is the first and last 15 minutes.
10. Know when to stop, more is not always better and just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
==========================
Bonus quote:
"a good game is a series of interesting choices."
@redbar0n
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redbar0n commented Jul 4, 2019

Do you have the reference to the original source for these notes?
Especially for the bonus quote, since it is debated whether and how exactly he said it.

@McFunkypants
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I'm sorry, I do not. For the contentious bonus quote, my original source is from Soren Johnson, available here: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/114402/Analysis_Sid_Meiers_Key_Design_Lessons.php

@redbar0n
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redbar0n commented Jul 11, 2019 via email

@idbrii
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idbrii commented Oct 19, 2023

Soren's reprinted his article on his podcast website with more readable formatting than gamasutra/gamedeveloper's missing line breaks. That article includes these rules:

  • a good game is a series of interesting choices
  • Double it or Cut it by Half
  • One Good Game is Better than Two Great Ones
  • Do your Research after the Game is Done
  • The Player Should Have the Fun, not the Designer or the Computer
  • the player must “always be the star”

And here's an archive.today snapshot and wayback archive.

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