Card, Orson Scott -- Essay (1991-03), “Games with No Limits,” Compute Magazine, No. 127

Dave — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:12:24 +0000

If we game players wanted to have an experience controlled by somebody else, we could rent a videotape. Gamewrights should try to empower us as players, not limit us unnecessarily. Someone at every game design company should have a fulltime job of saying, “Why aren’t we letting the player decide that?” […] When they let such unnecessary limitations creep into a game, gamewrights reveal that they don’t yet understand their own art. They’ve chosen to work with the most liberating of media — and yet they snatch back with their left hand the freedom they offered us with their right.
Remember, gamewrights, the power and beauty of the art of gamemaking is that you and the player collaborate to create the final story. Every freedom that you can give to the player is an artistic victory. And every needless boundary in your game should feel to you like failure.

Orson Scott Card (b. 1951) American author
Essay (1991-03), “Games with No Limits,” Compute Magazine, No. 127
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Card, Orson Scott -- Essay (1991-03), “Games with No Limits,” Compute Magazine, No. 127