

Cargo Cult Game Design - thesyndicate
http://bhargreaves.com/2010/04/cargo-cult-game-design/

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sage_joch
A few associations: I was first introduced to the "cargo cult" idea through
Feynman's commencement speech (<http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm>).
Also kind of related is PG's idea of nth-degree imitations
(<http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html>).

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trafficlight
Some examples would have been nice.

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thesyndicate
followup post, perhaps. :D

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Eastbeast314
As a game developer, I'm accustomed to building games around game mechanics.
It's often a struggle to convey the importance of strong core game mechanics
when they are not visible like beautiful art or animations. This article makes
it clear that adding game mechanics as a (problem solving!?) wrapper to a non-
game is akin to adding (problem solving!?) graphics to a game.

Nevertheless, I think that parallel can extend further in ways that might
soften the article's point (just as the author did at the end). Some game
design components, like clear state feedback and reward, are not so much game
mechanics as they are signals of the mechanic's state (usually done with art
in its general sense). In the same way, those signals could be incorporated
into non-games to reflect the internal workings of their state.

So, in the end, I agree with the article and think it provides an insightful
lens through which to view the parts of games relative to more tradition
software.

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cousin_it
But copying successful stuff without understanding it is the whole point of
evolution!

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Maro
The "comments" section which mixes all kinds of mentions from the Internet
including twitters is really annoying.

