You think you're playing the game, but the designer is playing your ethics. When The Last of Us Part II forces you to hurt someone you love, the real gameplay isn't on the screen—it's in your refusal to press the button.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dub2...

#TheLudicLogos #GamePhilosophy #TLOU2

In a world where games increasingly serve as mirrors to our inner selves, good design isn’t about control—it’s about revelation. Every rule, every mechanic, every obstacle becomes a reflection of the player’s own actions, persistence, hesitation, creativity, and, at times, cowardice.

What makes a game unforgettable? It’s the blend of psychology, art, and science. Raph Koster’s GDC talk reveals gameplay hinges on player biases—think Civilization Revolution’s clever AI simplicity. Artistically, games like V*5 thrive on creative freedom, yet genre mastery is key.

Interactivity is not what makes games powerful. Interpretation is.
A mechanic is just a mechanic—until it’s seen by the player through the lens of their own wounds, humor, or hope.

You don’t need more verbs. You need more resonance.

A well-crafted level is never just a path. It’s a philosophy made navigable.
Every jump, switch, and delay is a whisper of intent—
Do you rush, or do you hesitate?
Do you see this as a challenge, or a message?

Game design philosophy shapes how we experience games. Mechanical Gameplay, like Pac-Man’s set challenges, offers control but can feel repetitive. Reactionary Gameplay, seen in Dark Souls’ random encounters, boosts replayability but risks chaos.

Difficulty is not a wall. It is a mirror.
When a player fails, they are not blocked—they are reflected.
A well-designed challenge doesn’t say “You’re not good enough.”
It whispers, “Here is what you value. Here is what you fear.”

The player doesn’t play the game. The player plays themselves through the game.
Every mechanic, rule, or obstacle is just a mirror—reflecting the player’s persistence, hesitation, creativity, or cowardice.
Good game design isn’t about control; it’s about revelation.

A gamer's maneuver itself is a manifestation of a player's mental activity. Even in the most hand-brain-coordination-requiring genres, a move reflects a player's desire to reach a certain place or even achieve a bigger goal. Such desires bear value to be studied through a psychological lens.

In Gavin's video, he defines entertainment as a shortcut to satisfying survival instincts, offering minimal effort to achieve instant gratification. Gavin's take explains why specific genres of games stay mainstream in the industry.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOcT...

In Game Feel: a Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation, Steve Swink highlights five experiences that a great-feeling game has to offer:

Steve Swink's definition of game feel resonates with Liam Mitchell's understanding of the media: what distinguishes video games is their excellence at simulating space, which bestows meaning on the motion of an avatar and players' input.

#game #gamedev #indiegame

Making speed-running the pivot of levels leverages Celeste onto the top tier regarding level design. The case signifies the significance of creating self-expressing spaces for players when designing a video game. We need more than one layer of story for a level.

From the mechanical and systematic point of view, the goal of a challenge is to create ludic experience. Thus, in most cases, mechanical and systematic facets are a developer's focus when it comes to building up a decent flow channel.

#game #gamedev

The space in video games is dialectical between freedom and limitation. For a game designer, to design a game is to contemplate the magic of setting rules and boundaries, where the player sculpts and stretches out his new self by exploring possibilities, obligations, prohibitions, and penalities.

The book 《LudoPolitics》believes that the cause behind the overabundance of violent themes in the video game industry, besides the taste of the market, is the fact that a video game is a media excelling at simulating space. Violent actions are the cheapest way to offer feebacks.

#game