Oh crap

[prog]

Entering: Harvard Square.

No smoking, please.

Next stop: Central Square.

Priority Override.

Must break target down to component materials.

Comments

[prog.livejournal.com]

While it's a great game, it's interesting which tenets of modern digital game design it breaks the hell out of, though mostly due to its development before these became tenets.

That it cheerfully lets you sail into a situation you don't yet realize is unwinnable and then save your game is one. Even though a lot of modern video and computer games let you keep many save files, I think that and unwritten rule is that you only really need one nowadays, with the rest simply acting as a security blanket.

I was also briefly flummoxed by the fact that it doesn't keep any information for you. You actually have to take notes! On paper! Not only of the text factoids that the various characters might mention (only once, ever), but also things like which planets you've already visited and mined, or what stars are currently worth visiting due to something you've learned. A modern game would visually mark all these on the map, somehow. This one forces you to do all your own bookkeeping. Ooooold-skool.

[mangosteen]

So what are some of the basic tenets of digital game design, above and beyond that which apply to good UI design?

Obviously, "read th{is,ese} URL{' ',s}" is a reasonable answer as well.