thread: 2011-06-07 : Concentric Game Design
On 2011-06-23, Vincent wrote:
What I haven't made clear until now is: this post is about social context.
Here's the crucial background: 2011-01-10 : Social Context and Design.
"When I designed Apocalypse World for Meg and her ideal playgroup, I designed it to be fun and rewarding for them, yes, and I also designed it to fit into their lives. It gracefully accommodates sick kids, vacations, off-the-ball players, long stretches with no play, changes in the playgroup, individual cycles and levels of engagement and disengagement."
One of the specific ways I designed the game to accommodate individual cycles of engagement is to make it expand and collapse in play like this. This makes it learnable! You don't have to master the rules before you can have fun and rewarding play, and if you haven't mastered the rules, the game doesn't crash and burn on you. While you're learning to play, the game's already working.
