Christian Freeling has interesting things to say about game design:
Themes
The classification I employed is arbitrary. It served me well in exploring different alleys of thought, but it may at the same time have prevented me from ‘thinking outside the box’. Fortunately it’s a rather large box, yet it leaves interesting games like Amazons or Lines of Action without a clearcut thematic classification. Here it is:
- Chess variants
- Elimination games
- Territory games
- Connection games
- Breakthrough & Race games
- Configuration games
- Mancala games
The first two are ‘existential’ in that the object is to eliminate either the ‘heart’, as in chess, or ‘body & limb’ as in draughts. The other themes are ‘co-existential’ in that the object is to grab more or be faster, without necessarily cutting the other player’s throat.
There’s more where that came from, in considerable detail. Check it out:
Key concepts, or a glossary of sorts, or a toolbox