Level Up.pdf

More Wealth Than You Can Imagine! 365
More Wealth Than You Can Imagine!
I don ’ t know, I can imagine quite a bit.
Han Solo
Game designers have many very
powerful tools to keep the player
playing: Mystery, delight, pride, and
power we ’ ve already talked about, but
now we come to the two most
powerful of these tools: greed and
reward.
Greed will get players to do
interesting things. They will grind their
way through the grindiest MMOs to
get that stronger sword, that unique
hat, gain that next level. They will
jump onto the smallest platform
festooned with the deadliest traps just
to grab that one additional coin. They
will fight the biggest, meanest
enemies just to find out what comes
next in the story. Or to score that achievement. The following very
important thing rings true:
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE GREED OF THE PLAYER
But … instead of using the player ’ s greed for evil — luring the player to their
death to prove that you, the game designer, are cleverer than the player —
use their greed for good instead:
• Use the promise of treasure and items to motivate players to fight
enemies.
• Give the player a personal and customizable space to show off their
trophies and rewards. Once they start seeing some of the “ shelves ”
filling up, they ’ ll want to “ catch them all. ”