Applications of Design Feature from Cryptic

Design theory from someone who actually practices it... intriguing concept.

There's a new blog post up over at the Cryptic Studios Blog by Geoff Tuffli, one of the Combat Systems designers, which discusses a few conventions of game design and makes for a pretty interesting read.

Convention 2: The player’s character gets better based on the time played.

Regardless of player skill and barring non-formative gameplay, the more time a player’s character is played, the better in absolute mathematical terms that player’s character will get. Computer-controlled opponents that were fearsome yesterday are a pushover today.

Check it out.