So often people talk about ideas for games. However, I think the most fundemental part of game design is execution. How well a game executes the original idea is probably the biggest determinant of the overall quality of the game. Here are some ideas I have on important concepts in the execution of an idea. providing depth while minimizing the learning curve keeping difficulty consistant; eliminating "pinch points" where many players get stuck and frustrated offering gameplay variety without spreading development reasorces too thin blending story with gameplay; using good storytelling techniques keeping each level unique over multiple domains (look, strategy, player actions) while maintaining a cohesive feel throughout the game helping to guide the palyer through the gameplay experiance while still allowing for freedom designing gameplay mechanics that are fun and addictive appealing to gamers with different playing styles while still satasfying your core audiance adding new and inventive gameplay components that actually work well in action maintaining high replay value with limited development reasources constructing an intuitive and well-functioning GUI I think this sort of stuff is an important focus for game designers.

I like what you wrote. I think #2 on your list is my beef with some games. Some spots are just too hard to get thru and take my enjoyment away from the game.

You also have to be careful not to dumb down the game too much and thus alienating your loyal fans. This could be fixed by providing difficulty options. Lockon flightsim did this to appeal to average joe as well as to hardcore simmers.

About game replay value, is this really necessary from business stand point? I mean, you can have a good game with no replay value and still have fun with the game. Sooner or later you''re going to run out of differences because of resource budgets. I think replay value is when you add new content to the game the player hasn''t seen yet. Rather that shuffle the items, monsters, etc. around. So maybe instead of replay value designers can use that time and resources to add more content to the game instead. I don''t know, this is certainly debatable from both sides. I suppose for short action games you do want good replay value and for long story driven games you kindof don''t because of the length of the game and time to finish it. Hm...