thread: 2013-09-03 : Ordering the Conversation: How do you choose?
On 2013-09-06, Josh W wrote:
Well speaking as someone who constraint-blocks himself a lot, here's how I try to avoid it:
If you see the majority of your various constraints as grounds for improvement, ie "can I find a way to make this mechanic more like x" then you can start with something that doesn't fit that well, and slowly improve on it.
Dungeon world is a great public example of this, as it started with inhereting the highlighted stat xp thing, then the people designing it tried out a few other options until they found something that suited the game better.
The knack then is finding a good enough starting point that you can keep playtesting and move it in a better direction, after which you'll probably have an epipheny of what's wrong with it and start radically rebulding stuff.
This makes JMW go "or just keep games in your pocket till they're ripe"
because constraint blocking is sometimes only a delay, if you're continuously making other random little mechanics
