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Mark Rosewater, the head designer for Magic: The Gathering, has written an article where he explains Lenticular Design. Some of the article uses cards from Magic: The Gathering as examples, but the main explanation is mostly generic.
The idea of Lenticular Design is that when designing a game, make some components mean different things to different levels of players so all skill levels can access them. If a component is complex, a newer player might be confused by it (which will put them off playing your game), but highly experienced players may eventually get bored with too many simple parts. Lenticular Design adds hidden complexity into components so newer players don't notice them, but more advanced players can take advantage of this additional level of complexity.
He lists a number of rules when designing (within the context of designing a card game, however the descriptions are general enough that they could apply to a lot of game types).
Rule #1 Some Complexities are Invisible to Inexperienced Players
Rule #2 Cards Have to Have a Surface Value
Rule #3 Experience Is Connected to How Far Ahead a Player Thinks
Rule #4 Novices Tend Not to Think of Causality
Rule #5 Players Will Try to Use the Cards to Match Their Perceived Function
Rule #6 Let the Players Play the Game They Want to Play
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 04 2014, @05:33AM
I've been developing a related game concept for years now that I have dubbed "Deepen." I love gaming, but become so addicted to them that I don't allow myself to have any consoles or PC games anymore, lest I lose months of productive time. At a certain point, after gaining 100% completion on GTA: San Andreas, I felt like I had eaten five straight cans of Pringles. And I thought, wouldn't it have been great if, instead of vaporizing two months of my life, I came out at the end of it having acquired some useful real-world skill like the ability to speak Chinese or understand Organic Chemistry? Wouldn't it be great if, having acquired that skill, that I also acquired college credit or a certification that would make me more marketable or effective as a professional? Note, I'm not talking about Serious Games or gamification of a standard school curriculum or anything dry and tedious as that. I'm talking about adding dimensions to a game you already love to "deepen" the experience. Take an RPG, for example. OK, you've hacked and slashed and spelled your way through the first orc horde, but now it's time to travel to the Eastern Realms for the next campaign; Trouble is, to book passage on the transport over there you have to learn to say it in Mandarin. It's only one simple phrase at first, nothing you can't handle, but little by little the story line requires you to learn more so you can communicate with the mysterious traveller huddled into a corner in the lower hold. And so on and so on, and by the end of the campaign the game announces you now have a 1000 word vocabulary, an intermediate proficiency in Mandarin, and college credit for having completed the equivalent of the second year of a Mandarin course.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by Woods on Friday April 04 2014, @01:23PM
What an interesting concept. I believe that this could totally work. I used to watch a lot of subbed anime, and I started to pick up on Japanese enough to (sometimes) know what they were saying without reading the text.
I think the tough part would be making it interesting enough to keep people playing, I would think you would have to have a good game as the backbone, and then build in the "learning" bit, but I am not a game developer and I have no idea if that is an accurate assessment.
Once you get something workable, if you need someone to do some testing, let me know, I would be glad to help. I have a knack for breaking things and/or finding bugs where they should not be. My e-mail is listed in my profile here.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 04 2014, @04:34PM
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I will definitely take you up on that offer.
You are quite right that a good game has to be the backbone. Else it feels like work, and you quit.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by Woods on Friday April 04 2014, @06:10PM
Reminds me a lot of Space Cadets [strongholdgames.com], where you and your friends each control a specific station on a spaceship, each station is a mini-game by itself.
If you play several games of it, depending on which station(s) you played, you will undoubtedly come away with a stronger grasp of spacial relationships, have better understanding of need vs want, and how to make due with what little you have.
An example of that last one: We accidentally put all of our energy to our aft shields this round, so now helm has to come up with a way to dodge those asteroids, and end the turn with us facing away from the enemy.
This comment is already long enough, I might as well mention that my time playing NetHack has taught me that if I am clever enough, there is ALWAYS a way out of any situation. I just have to stop and think for long enough, and consider all the possibilities before I act. Amazingly, this comes in handy quite often in the IT world.