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Best Game Mechanics: 8 That Rewired Gaming (and 6 Nobody Copied)
One button slows the world. You float through the air, picking off enemies who are suddenly crawling through molasses, and the whole firefight turns into something …
Four Elements of Game Mechanics: Two Frameworks, One Reconciliation
The four elements of game mechanics, in the most widely taught framework, are mechanics, aesthetics, story, and technology. That's the Elemental Tetrad from Jesse Schell's The …
Game Mechanics vs Gameplay: Why One Is the Rules and the Other Is What Emerges
I went looking for a quick answer to what I thought was a dumb question, and it turned into a proper rabbit hole. Because here's the …
Game Mechanics List: 40+ Mechanics, Sub-Types, and the Games That Defined Them
Every mechanics list on the internet claims to be complete, which is funny, because the field itself can't agree on what counts as a mechanic. There's …
Game Mechanics Examples: How the Nemesis System Actually Works (and Why Nobody Else Has It)
Game mechanics examples from popular video games read like a punch list of things you've done a thousand times: lock-on targeting came from Ocarina of Time …
What Is Geek Culture? Psychology Confirms It’s Not Social Dysfunction
I was recently conducting lifestyle and career placement interviews for a technical role. One of the candidates leaned back and stated with complete confidence that he …
What Does Outsourcing Thinking Mean for Learning and Education? The 48%-Correct, 17%-Worse Paradox Explained
I went down a rabbit hole the other night and came out somewhere strange. Picture a student, any student, anywhere. They hit a math problem they …
You Can Outsource Your Thinking — But You Can’t Outsource Your Understanding
You can outsource your thinking, but you can't outsource your understanding. Andrej Karpathy's line keeps getting quoted online, and every time I see it, I think …
