I will admit that I am a very jaded gamer.  I am often surprised when a game not only captures my interest, but also delivers a good and sometimes powerful story in the midst.  And so I have a tendency to over think my designs and think of the games that I want to see and play.

Admittedly, this is a problem.  Not only am I a jaded gamer, I could also be considered part of the “hardcore gamer” demographic – up to and including playing (and winning) a gaming tournament.  This skews my vision of what is considered “fun.”

My eldest son liked my game, but I could see he didn’t enjoy it.  It was too complicated for him and after a while, he lost interest.  And my wife didn’t like it at all.  She was proud of what I was able to accomplish with so little resources and time, but it wasn’t the kind of game that she looked forward to playing.

The “golden chalice” of game design is finding what this demographic likes to play – especially women who outnumber men on the Internet.  So I realized that I stepped away from making games for my boys and for my wife and made a game that I would play, but not them.  And even then, the graphics of Strike Eagle, though technically savvy, were not enough eye-candy to cover up its design flaws.

Over the last weekend, I was playing with my two boys.  The eldest was trying to stack a bunch of blocks while the youngest was trying to knock it down.  And they were doing it over and over again, laughing at blowing up castles made of blocks.  I was amazed at how something so simple could be so much fun.

So I thought back to the kinds of games I loved to play as a kid and instead of overcomplicating a design, I was thinking of doing something smaller, simpler and much more fun for my wife and kids – to make something that they would want to play over and over again.