"What is more important in a game?" Topic

nheastvan:

Yes, Raph's book is a gem. Clear, simple and insightful. I think Bean would be very comfortable with your application of F.A.C.E. He wrote articles specifically talking about the considerations behind each letter in F.A.C.E. My point in bringing it up was 1. The issues for simulation game design are universal, Bean being solely a training simulation designer… yet fun is still a critical element. As it is with any educational simulation. And the issues of F.A.C.E. are certainly those found among our hobby designers.

And I agree with you assessment of Otto's question. It is like asking which is more important for a car, the gas or the engine. Any conclusions would be highly subjective, and be TOTALLY useless in designing a car as both are necessary. There certainly could be arguments over which is more important for YOUR design, gas consumption or engine horse power, but that is now a technical question with a particular design goal.

I haven't been able to find Bean's articles by searching. Were they on an older version of his site? Or perhaps behind some sort of subscription service pay wall?

nheastvan:

I haven't looked for them for a long time. I can find them referenced, but I can't call them up either. It looks like Bean has archived the earlier posts [2008 etc.] and only has ones from the last two years.

I'll continue to look.