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Kotaku
Gamasutra has another essay from Danc of Lost Garden up, this one entitled 'The Chemistry of Game Design.' Chock full of visual aids and some interesting observations on game mechanics and how players learn to play a game (and master it), it's a lengthy but worthy read. In true academic fashion, he sums up his discussion of skill chains, mastery, and burnout in the last few paragraphs and tells you why all this matters (or should matter):
The reproducible application of psychological manipulation of individuals and groups using software is big heady stuff. In the short term, I would hope that a deep understanding of models like skill chains help us crack open the rigid craftsmanship of existing genres so that we can build better, more potent games. Long term, it will be interesting to see what world changing uses we can find for our ever improving psychological technology.
While it's true that in many fields, the 'academic/research' side and the 'real world' side are frequently at odds and never the twain shall meet, I'm interested to see if perhaps the game development world can bridge that gap a little better and take philosophical research to real world applications in fewer than eighty steps in between.
The Chemistry of Game Design [Gamasutra]
