Guidelines for Strategy Game Design

A game should let players know what they ought to be doing at each step of the way.

Pieces should move in a pleasant and intuitive way, without a lot of counting or fiddliness.

The game should be set up without requiring understanding of its play.

In general, a game should have one central loop of actions.

Wherever possible, communicate your gameplay with diagrams to ensure players understand how to play correctly.

An instruction (as we’ll call it here) is anything that the game instructs players to do outside the ordinary flow of rules.

Players are the most important part of a game, so choose them with as much care as any other component.

Accessibility is of paramount importance. If a game can’t be played, it can’t be enjoyed, and so it can’t fulfill its purpose.

At some point, a winner will be clear. Someone’s engine comes online or pulls ahead, or someone starts to generate points quickly enough that the rest of the players can’t hope to catch up.

In any game, there is a moment where the player’s decisions start contributing to their victory.

If the game allows it, Players will form strategies. These strategies should not require excessive calculation to understand or evaluate.

A destructive choice is one that damages the player or the game in such a way that it can no longer continue normally.