Ferruccio CinquemaniOne principle of game design that I struggle to verbalize properly is "don't make the users suffer for something that is hard to do for the developers". I am not sure how to express it in a more concise way, but I find often that many gamedevs have the attitude of not wanting to do something because it's hard or annoying to maintain for the developers, even if it has a clear value for the player. I feel like there should be an easier way to express this.
aeva@rottame I think I get your meaning, but an example would be interesting never the less
@aeva I guess a very common example may be "letting players to climb everywhere is hard for level design, therefore climbing is only allowed on the walls with yellow marks". Or "stacking abilities is very fun but it makes the players too powerful so we don't allow stacking". It's not that these solutions are *bad*, but they are unambitious and always leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Jeff Stewart@rottame One of Vicarious Visions' studio values was "We are fearless pathfinders." As an engineer it's the one that resonated with me the most, for the reasons you describe.