Why moderate features add meaning to your game?

Along development of my last game, I shared its features evolution with players and developers. These people who discovered the game suggested many big features to add.

To add features? Yes, but with moderation respecting these rules:

A key feature resonate with the game direction. It is necessary from the beginning to the end of the game and it influences players decisions.

Every fundamental feature makes sense within other features and they influence each other. Usage of each feature makes usage of the others necessary.

A feature without impact on other features breaks the balance between all the features offered or it feels useless. This may lead players to dominant or hazardous strategies destroying challenge interest.

The more there are key features, the more their interests and effects decrease. The effect of a key feature is crucial to reach game goals, otherwise player’s reflection lose its pertinence.

We tend to ask for more diversity in our gaming interactions. However, often we neglect the quality to add quantity and it will lose the player in meaningless actions.

Also, I think it is important to not forget that game richness can emerge from features combinations. Taken independently, features may seem simplistic, but combined they create sophisticated situations to play with.

I followed these rules in order to offer good features in Pharmakon and I wanted to share these obvious but untold key concepts.