Game Design Tip: Don't alliterate game terms.


We had a tornado warning over our city early this morning. I'm still a little woozy, so forgive the blitheness of this blog post.

See, blearily waking up to a blaring weather radio, tornado sirens, and power flashes is not the best time to distinguish the finer details between a tornado watch and a tornado warning. One means "oh, I can sleep a little bit longer" and the other means "get to shelter now." Kinda important, so you'd think they would be more distinct from each other. Nope.

Thankfully our city was spared, but this incident brings up an important tip for any game designer:


Do not alliterate your game terms!

For example, if you are designing an RPG and you have stats representing how much your hero Kronk can lift, go ahead and call that Strength.

But if you need a stat representing how much of a beating Kronk can sustain, do NOT call that Stamina. It's too close to "strength" and has the same mouth-feel. Try Bulk, Health, Constitution, Armor, anything that doesn't start with "str" or rhyme with strength.

Another example, Heroclix has three defensive powers called Invincible, Impervious, and Invulnerability. All three powers are apparently slightly different from each other, but close enough to be confusing.


My Rules of Thumb for Game Terms

  1. Game terms are verbal icons. Just like icons, they should be distinct.
  2. Use a different initial letter for each key term.
  3. Make each key term short and easy to say out loud.
  4. If you must break any of the above rules, don't group similar key terms in the same part of the game. For example, if "strength" is most often used in a combat system, you can use "strain" or  "strife" or "straight-laced" in a completely different system.
In short, your game terms should be as different from each other as a square and a circle.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has
Read more

One Thing to Avoid in Game Design

Image
When game designer Paul Peterson was interviewed for the upcoming Titans Series of games from Calliope Games, there was one segment at 1:55 that really caught my attention (emphasis mine): "A couple years ago I was teaching people how to play Guillotine and I hadn't played in a while. The first thing I did was say, 'The first thing you gonna do when you open your game is you look through this deck and you take this card.' I pulled out the Callous Guards card and threw it over my shoulder. Everybody laughed. I said, ' That's the biggest mistake I ever made as a game designer in my life.'" Oof. Those are strong words. What's the big deal? For context, the game Guillotine is all about collecting the heads of French nobles during the revolution. There is only one guillotine, with a line of nobles waiting for their grim fate. On your turn, you play action cards to change the order of the line, then take the Noble card from the front of the
Read more

Belle of the Ball Guest Name Generator

Image
Here's a fun little toy to tide you over while Belle of the Ball's is still in playtesting. Come up with your own name for a Belle of the Ball guest! Start with a first name from the first table. Then add a surname by combining a prefix and suffix from the second table. Bang! Now you're one classy Dental Untercaw or Chive Pimplesack!
Read more