Most humans like games. But what are games, exactly? Not in a philosophical sense, but in the sense of “what exactly are their worky bits, so we know how to make them?” [Raph Koster] aims to answer that in a thoughtful blog post that talks all about game design from the perspective of what, exactly, makes them tick. And we are right into that, because we like to see things pulled apart to learn how they work.

On the one hand, it’s really not that complicated. What’s a game? It’s fun to play, and we generally feel we know a good one when we see it. But as with many apparently simple things, it starts to get tricky to nail down specifics. That’s what [Raph]’s article focuses on; it’s a twelve-step framework for how games work, and why they do (or don’t) succeed at what they set out to do.

[Raph] says the essentials of an engaging game boil down to giving players interesting problems to solve, providing meaningful and timely feedback, and understanding player motivation. The tricky part is that these aren’t really separate elements. Everything ties together in a complex interplay, and [Raph] provides insights into how to design and manage it.

It’s interesting food for thought on a subject that is, at the very least, hacker-adjacent. After all, many engaging convention activities boil down to being games of some kind, and folks wouldn’t be implementing DOOM on something like KiCAD’s PCB editor or creating first-person 3D games for the Commodore PET without being in possession of a healthy sense of playfulness.