10/14/16 Episode 375: Twenty Lessons, Part 8--Details Matter

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater

I’m pulling out of the parking lot! We all know what that means! It’s time for another Drive to Work. And I took my daughter to her last day of camp as a counselor. For me, summer’s ending. I know for you guys it already is, but… ahh, the time difference between recording and hearing it.

Okay. So, today is another in my Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons podcast series. So we’re up to lesson number eight. So today’s lesson is, the details are where the player falls in love with the game. So we’re going to talk all about that and why details are so important.

Okay. So first, I always give an example. It’s what I did in my talk. So for this story I go back to original Ravnica. So in Ravnica, we made a card called Totally Lost. [NLH—This was actually in Gatecrash.] Which was a nothing card, I mean it was a decent card in Limited, it’s not even a Constructed card, but on it we drew a picture of a little homunculus named Fblthp. And he was lost. He was totally lost.

And some—that little lost homunculus went on to endear people in the hearts. And people started taking it, and started making images with it. This is one of the things in my talk, showed—I had lots and lots of images, so I’ll walk you through it but this was—there’s so many fun pictures of him, it’s hard to see. But what happened was, people really embraced Fblthp. And they started making memes with him, and they started hiding him in other art, and they started just having fun with him and making comics with him, and greeting cards with him, and all sorts of things. It’s all over the web. Just Magic players really just became enamored of him.

They had—Walking the Planes had a whole shtick where the comedy was Fblthp, and we ended up making a Fblthp plushie, and then we ended up making like a phone case [NLH--Couldn't find this.] and I think a keychain. But the idea was, it was this little tiny thing that was almost a throwaway. It was just like, oh, we need a card that’s “Totally Lost.” Well, who’s lost? Well, this little homunculus is lost.

And when they made the flavor text, they go, we’re going to name the little homunculus. We’re going to name him Fblthp. And Fblthp, by the way, is F-B-L-T-H-P. There’s no vowels. Apparently homunculus don’t put vowels in their names. But the interesting thing is, we really just did it as this kind of entertaining thing that just made sense in the moment, it was a cute card, and everything about it was trying to make an awesome moment.

But we weren’t—the idea wasn’t that we were doing something grandiose. If you had said to the person who was writing the card concept for that card, or writing the flavor text, and you said to them, one day, there’s going to be a plushie, there’s going to be keychains and all sorts of stuff, no one would have—you know, that wasn’t something people did going in.

But one of the reasons I say that’s important is the following idea, which is, when you are making your game, remember. The last time I was talking about how players are searching for their choices. They want to find things—you know, they’re making choices, but as they’re making choices, they’re looking for things to bond with.

That players want to find an emotional connection. I talked about that in the previous lesson, of how you want to make an emotional connection. Okay. Once they’re emotionally connected, the next step is players are like, okay. I now want to find a way to make this part of me. To find a way to create expression in which this game is personal.

And it’s something people do all the time. For example, if you think about TV shows, or movies, or any kind of pop culture, it’s very common for people to sort of find the character that they care about. You know, there’s just some character—and one of the things that’s just human nature is to try to find some aspect that you appreciate that not everybody appreciates, that you appreciate. That personifies it, that makes it something that’s more personal for you.

And a lot of times what that will happen is, like people will latch onto very tiny things in movies or TV. You know, minor characters. Because like, well, everybody likes the main character. Oh, but I like this little smaller character.

And that one of the things that just—it’s like I said, it’s pure human nature, is that you want to sort of take an experience and do something about it so the experience becomes more uniquely your experience. That players want to find a piece of it to call their own. Because in order to really fall in love with something, and really to become endeared to it, you have to find a way to sort of make a connection to it. To make a real strong bond with it.

You know, like one of the things for example about, like a first date, when you go on a first date, is there’s this moment where the other person will say something, and you find some connection of some trivial thing. But the fact that you both have this interesting connection that’s not an obvious connection, it’s not something a lot of people do, but the two of you both do that is kind of unique. That not a lot of people do this. But you two do that. It’s a very interesting moment. It’s a very bonding moment.

And that you know—Magic gives you a lot of choices. That one of the things about Magic, that Magic does well is, we’re a collectible game. We give you lots and lots of options and choices how to do that. You know, you know can bond over cards. You can bond over characters. You can bond over creature types. You can bond over images.

Likewise, for example, in Khans of Tarkir, we did a card called Savage Punch. Which shows Surrak, one of the clan leaders, punching a bear. And oh my goodness that image, just like it—once again, it’s something people make memes out of and people really connected to, and like, just bear-punching, who punches a bear? And just, it was just kind of this cool moment.

And that one of the things is, people, when they play Magic, are looking for different things. It can be the art. It can be a name. It can be flavor text. It can be mechanics. There’s all sorts of things you can look for. And Magic has lots and lots of things to look for. It actually does this really, really well.

But the key is, and this is what today’s lesson is all about is, why those details are so important. Okay? Because the key to the details is that you don’t know when or where players are going to bond with something. What you want to do as a creator is create those opportunities.

And what that means is that you really want to—nothing is too insignificant. That there’s nothing you could do—because people are going to pore over whatever you make. And they’re going to spend a lot of time and energy looking for things and trying to bond over things. And so one of the—I mean, the major lesson here is, there’s no such thing as an insignificant detail.

And I know a lot of people are saying, like, well, if it’s just a minor thing, who cares about it? But that small detail—so it might only matter to a tiny percentage of the player base. It might not matter to everybody. But to the people it matters to, it could matter a lot. In fact, it could the thing they bond over.

Like, one of the things I talk all about in this whole series is, someone plays a game. And then—you make a decision all the time of—think of it this way. Every time you finish a game, you’re like, am I going to play this game again? Now, the more you play the game, the easier that barrier is. You know, the first time you play it, there’s a huge barrier to playing a second time. Ehh, but the 84^th time you play, there’s not a giant barrier to the 85^th time.

And obviously the more you play the more habit-forming it becomes, you know. So the more someone plays the game, the more likely they’re going to play again. But a lot of what takes the game from being a maybe to a definite is this personal connection.

I talked about this in the previous lesson, I will talk about it now, that as a game designer, something you have to think about—and like I said, a lot of what I’m trying to say is just explaining human nature. To me a lot of good game design is understanding how humans function and making sure that in your game design you are playing into human behavior, not fighting human behavior. Because fighting human—like that was my very first lesson. Fighting human behavior does not get you very far. Humans are very stubborn. Very, very stubborn. In the way they function.

Okay. So the big lesson here is that you want people to bond. You want people to sort of make a personal connection. Okay. You don’t know exactly how or where they’ll bond. In fact, one of the things that’s interesting is, players will bond over lots of different things in a lot of different ways. So what you want to do is you want to make sure there’s just lots of options. There’s lots of nooks and crannies for people to fall in love. People to sort of make their own.

So what that means is, kind of the point of today is, details are more important than I think people realize. Because it’s very easy to go, well, that’s just a tiny bit. Well, whatever. Who’s even going to notice “blah”?

And the answer is, it’s not that everybody’s going to notice “blah.” But somebody’s going to notice it. And it’s in those moments—like one of the things that’s funny is, when you think about TV shows or movies or things you have really bonded with, you (???). There’s just something that happens that really spoke to you.

Like a lot of times, for example, I find that it’s just like a little tiny joke or something, that just—it’s something—I always appreciate something where like, oh, this wasn’t necessarily meant for everybody. It was meant for some people. It was meant for me. That joke was meant for me.

And so when I’m making a Magic card, I want to make sure, for example—like, one of the things I think about is, not every card for every player. But every card is for some player. And I want to make sure that whoever that card is for, that I’m maximizing this card being for that person. That I want that person to fall in love with this card. And the same is true for the art, the same is true for the names, for the flavor text, every component’s true. All this is true. I’m just talking mechanics for a second because that’s what I do.

So you really want to think about the nuance of how something plays and how something can work. And one of the things that we spend a lot of time on, so like we have a database where we can make comments about things. And one of the things that we do quite a bit is we will spend lots of energy on very minor, tiny details. On very tiny details. And why? Because the details matter. I know—I mean it’s sort of--the point of today’s lesson is, understanding why you have to spend so much work on your details. Why the details matter so much.

And the answer really boils down to the idea that somebody’s going to look at everything. There’s nothing you’re going to do, there’s no component or piece to what you’re doing that is insignificant because no one’s going to look at it. Everybody’s going to look at—sorry. Somebody’s—not everybody. Not everybody will look at everything, but somebody will look at everything.

And so one of the things I want to keep in mind is when I’m thinking about something, I want to go—I mean, you start macro, and then you go micro. And what you want to think about is, okay, how is this card going to be played? How is someone going to put their—how are they going to build a deck around it? What are they doing with it? You know what I’m saying? The big question is, I have to think about the whole experience. I can’t just think about—

I mean, that’s one of the big things about trying to sort of do design, and this is why playtesting’s so important, this is why having teams to bounce ideas off is so important. Is what you want to do is you want to make sure that you’ve thought through everything, and that—I think sometimes people feel, like, well, as long as they get the major things right, the minor things are less important. The major things are the important thing.

And kind of the issue is that the major things do matter, I’m not saying don’t spend time on the major things, but don’t underestimate the importance of the tiny things. Because the tiny things—like one of the things that’s very interesting is, everybody who works on Magic—not everybody works on every part of the game. You know. I, for example, I’m on the design team. So I care a great deal about what goes in the rules text. I care about the mana cost, I care about the card type and the subtype, I care about power and toughness, I care about all the elements that are mechanically relevant.

Now, I do care about the other things, I do want the overall feel of the card to be right, I want the concept of the card to be right, those are things I do think about and I will add to. Not my job to finalize them, but something I think about.

And that one of the things that is pressing is, making sure that at each time, as I’m examining each thing—like one of the things that’s very neat is, there is no point of a Magic card that somebody doesn’t think really, really hard about is this the best choice for that thing. You know. That I’m going to spend a lot of time agonizing over exactly how a mechanic works. And somebody else is going to agonize over the numbers. And somebody else is going to agonize over, is this the right creature type? And someone else is going to agonize over the card concept. And someone else is going to agonize over the art. Like, where do we crop the art? What’s the right thing?

And the artist is going to—you know, each piece is being done by artists, and they’re going to spend all their energy trying to make that the best piece of art possible. You know. And that one of the things that really, really sort of, I think, comes together is—and Magic has the luxury of time. Because we are a big brand and we make a lot of money, one of the things that gets us is time. That we have the luxury of time. Meaning that a card isn’t just made and done with in two days. It goes through months and months of—you know, many hands get on it.

And another thing that happens is, we will have arguments about the smallest of minutiae. I have—for example, I think I’ve told this story, but it’s a good example, where I used to write flavor text. And I did a piece of flavor text in Mirage. On Dwarven Miner. And I had a big fight with the editor about she wanted to change one word. One word. And I’m like, no no no no, it breaks the flow of the rhythm of the line. And I went toe-to-toe on “That word’s the right word.” You know.

We’ll have major arguments about what exactly is the right creature type. Is it the right creature type? Does it also want this creature type, how about this? You know. And when we’re doing mechanics sometimes, like trinket text is what we call something that’s on a card that doesn’t mechanically come up too much, but it adds kind of some flavor value to it. And we spend a lot of time on trinket text trying to—like, is this the right trinket text? Does it feel? You know, can we make something that every once in a while will matter, and when it matters it’s flavorful?

There’s a lot of stuff like that we spend time on, and the end result of that, the reason that it’s so important, the reason that—I mean, a lot of what I’m saying today, sort of the lesson of today is that you can’t—if you want to put out a game and you want your game to be successful, that it goes beyond just the general premise. I know it’s very easy to go, well, if the general idea is fun and then the broad strokes are good, then we’re good. And the answer is, no, you’re not. And the reason is, those broad strokes will get people to sample.

So here’s the way I like to think of your game, which is—let me walk through the stages of player bonding. Okay? So number one is, first exposure. First impression. Oh, I hear or see this game for the first time. I have the first impression of a game.

Now, for that, I need to go, oh, that sounds interesting. I need enough—something about it, you know, I talked about the “hook” when I talked about Ten Things Every Game Needs. (???). I just need something about the game, that says, oh. Now, maybe it’s just a good game and there’s good word of mouth about it. Maybe it’s got a good premise. Maybe it’s using some IP that people love. But something about it. The first impression. Okay?

So I hear about it, I go, oh! I’m interested in trying this. That’s the first thing. Next is interacting with the game for the first time. Not hearing about it, but actually starting to play it. What I call sort of the initial learning period. Where like, okay… and the initial learning period comes in one of two ways. Either it’s self-taught, like I’m reading the instructions, or it is taught by someone else. Someone walks you through it.

It could—the third example is a computer could walk you through it if the game is a computer game. But either you’re teaching yourself or someone’s walking you through it. A human walking you through it and a computer walking you through it, a little bit different in how it interacts with you. But similar in that someone’s teaching you.

Okay. So first impression. Then you have the learning of the game. I’m learning how it works. First impression is fast. First impression is like, (snapping fingers), I got a few seconds. Does that sound interesting? Does that sound—you know.

When I’m learning a game, I am allowed to—what I like to say is, I need to make sure that the person gets the basic concept in a few minutes. They don’t even need to get all the details, but like, okay, ehh, roughly what is this game about? You need to be able to sum up the game in a couple minutes.

And once again, that’s not all the rules. It’s just like, ehh, what’s the basic premise? What am I trying to do? And then, depending on the kind of game, you know, like the more casual the game player, the less amount of time you have to teach. The more hardcore the game player, the more time you have to teach them.

So it’s like, if someone is like, well, I don’t really play games, well you better be simple for them—you better get them to understand quickly. If it’s kind of like, oh—you know, it’s a gamer’s game, oh, okay, they’ll spend some time trying to learn it and that’s okay. But the idea is, there’s a point where you’re learning the game, and it’s not like you’re getting every aspect of the game, but I’m getting the essentials so I know enough to start playing.

Next is the first play. The first time you play the game. And that’s like—okay, I’m now—I’m experiencing, I’m actually in the middle of playing the game. And then, the final thing is coming back to the game after having—you know, playing a second time. And on some level, every time you play it, there is an exit point. Although once again, like I said, the more times you play, that exit point decreases. It doesn’t go away. But it decreases.

So one of the things to keep in mind is, different parts of your game are covering different aspects. So when I talk about, you know, okay, your initial pitch, okay, that’s your hook. That’s your premise. That’s something—you have to have an essence to your game that’s going to hook people. And that’s not what I’m talking about today.

Number two is the learning of the game. And that has to do with your rules, and has to do with sort of—make sure it’s clear what you’re doing, that there’s resonance. You know. That’s other stuff I’m talking about.

Next is the first playing of the game. Now we start getting to the area where the details matter. Because the idea is, at each of these points you can check out. I hear about the premise of the game and I go, ehh, not for me. I sit down to learn the game and go, ehh, not for me. I play the game and go, ehh, not for me. I play the game other times and I go, ehh, not for me. At any point I can duck out.

So where the details start to matter is, the idea is, notice that each time there’s more investment. That when I’m hearing the premise, not a lot of—it’s yes I’m interested, no I’m not. If I say yes I’m interested, that means, well, down the road I might pursue it. But I’m just sort of showing interest or not. Takes very little time, not too much commitment.

Next commitment is like, I gotta learn the game. And at that point I’m like, okay, I now get the essence of the game, do I want to play? If I want to play I gotta stick around for the game, and the game might be X amount of time, so there’s some investment there. So once again, now you’re spending minutes on it, and figuring out whether it’s worth spending more time.

Next, you play the game. That game varies. Could be five minutes, could be ten minutes, could be an hour depending on the game. And then it’s sort of like, oh, do I want to come back, that I’ve seen this. So one of the things that happens is, we’re talking about the bonding.

The bonding is not gonna happen—I mean, the premise might—there’s a little bonding that happens in the first part, which is, hey, it’s an IP I like, or hey, it’s a kind of game I like, or hey, the buzz is so strong I’m interested. There’s a little bit there. And learning the rules is a little bit—maybe there’s something innovative about the rules, or ooh, that sounds kind of cool. You can do some things that can bond people there. But really where you’re bonding people is when they actually play the game.

That’s when the cards are in their hands, or whatever. The pieces are in their hands. And they’re actually playing the game. They’re interacting with the game. It’s no longer “about the game”, it’s “the game”. And that’s where details become really important.

Now, the key is, and this is what’s important. People don’t need to bond over lots of details. People—if you get one detail in the first time playing the game, if you get one detail that speaks to somebody, you go, oh, wow! That’s all you need. That one detail will make them play again. That’s how crucial having a bonding detail is. That all it takes for someone, when they play their first game, is to just have something that speaks to them. That that usually—not always, I guess. But usually is enough to make them go to the second game.

Now, I—my point is, it’s not—what I’m asking is not easy. You know, having someone bond with the game is not something that necessarily happens. And not all players bond with the game the first time through. But here’s the point of today is, once you get them to bond—so I talk about stickiness of the game. And what stickiness means is how much the game makes you want to stick with the game. Like, how does it go, oh, that’s interesting, I want to know more. And the stickiest games are the games in which, you know, you just look at it and go, oh, that’s interesting. Like, Magic’s a very sticky game. Here’s why.

The premise of the game is pretty cool. You have cards, and you’re a magic user, and you’re having a magical duel, and the cards are creatures and artifacts. Okay, the premise sounds cool. I go, oh, I’m interested.

Then, when you actually get people to learn, the first thing you get to do is you get to put cards in their hands. They’re like, ooh, this is pretty, and there’s pictures, and there’s flavor. And that really pulls you in. And then, when you actually play the game, the gameplay is really solid. It’s fun gameplay. When you’re like, oh, I hit you with a Lightning Bolt, and ooh, you lost three… okay, I’m using an old example. But whatever I—you took direct damage and you lose something. You know, that is very compelling, or I have a creature and attack with a creature. It grabs you very quickly.

And the idea is that what you want to do is you want to make your game sticky, and what sticky means is that you get people to—it has a lot of components that make people want to see the next component. That they go, ooh, this is interesting, I want to learn more.

Now, bonding’s a step beyond stickiness. Stickiness is just, I like that detail, hmm, I’m interested. Show me the next detail. Bonding is, oh. I emotionally connect with that component. Something about that component and me, I go, ooh, there’s something there. And how people emotionally bond, what they emotionally bond, huge variance. What makes—my point today is, it is that bond that, like, once you have a bond with a game, that really pulls you in. And once you have multiple bonds with a game, you’re hooked. You’re there.

In fact, one bond can hook you, but multiple bonds will keep you really hooked. And that one of the things you want to do when you’re making your game is you want to create opportunities to really pull people in. To get that bonding.

Really what you want to do is make lots of bonding, and like, the more bonding you have, the more connection, the closer and closer the person will feel to the game. And remember that the key is that you want people to think of your games not in terms of the game, but in terms of themselves. That is important.

For example, I’ll use Magic just because it’s my go-to example. Somebody could think, wow, that’s Magic. That’s an awesome game. That’s a fun game. That’s good. Someone else could think, wow, Magic. The color blue, that’s me!

Now the first one, I do think the person’s going to play the game. I do think there’s a lot of hope for repeat playing. But the second person, they are connected in a more emotional way. That they see themselves. And that people inherently—and it’s not a bad way, it’s just how humans function—that you see the world through your eyes. You experience the world through your experiences.

And that the world—I mean, there is, you know, an objective world, but people’s perspective of it is how they see it. And so when people are coming to a game, it’s that perspective. It’s—when there’s this emotional tie to it, when it means something emotionally to them, when the game takes on a meaning beyond being a game.

Like, a game is a game. A game you could take, a game you could leave. But an experience, a thing that’s part of you. Like one of the things that’s very interesting is that there’s a difference between someone who plays Magic: The Gathering and a Magic: The Gathering player.

Like, I’m a gamer. I play games. I am a Magic: The Gathering player. That my self-identify [sic]—like if you really can get your game to click in, people identify as someone—part of their identity is your game. Your game is part of their identity. When you get there, you’re golden. Right? When they identify because part—your game is such a rich experience that they sort of identify through it, that is the best a game can be. That’s the best a game can do.

And so the idea is, when you’re crafting your game, you need to maximize the ability for your player to be able to have that emotional bonding through your game. And really the way that is done is making a lot—it’s through a lot of small choices. The big choices can help, I’m not actually saying the big choices can’t help. But where the small choices matter more in some way—I mean, the big choices do matter, the big choices pull them in, the big choices—like, magical duel is pretty cool. Okay, that’s a big thing.

But the thing that really sort of makes the long-term cement bondings is the players going in your game and finding things that speak to them. Now, it doesn’t have to be the details. It’s not that you can’t bond through other things. You can. But the details are where you personify it and make it uniquely your own.

I mean, a lot of people can bond through certain aspects and that’s fine, and I do believe people bond through the color wheel, I do believe people bond through some of the game itself. But I think that one of the things that sort of speaks to people is that they find a little niche. They find something that’s really theirs.

And with Magic you will see that, in that one of the things that people do is they figure out what is their part of the game. What’s their take on the game? Is it there’s a certain kind of thing they like? There’s a subset of cards they enjoy, they play a certain color, you know, they love elves, they love black, they love a certain archetype or certain style of play. You know, there’s something about it that they can—you know, that they like a certain format. They like a certain way to play. They like—you know, they look at the game and they figure out, okay, how do I identify myself within the game? And that is where we really start connecting.

And so the key is that the reason those details are so crucial is, once somebody picks something. For example, let’s say someone says, okay. I love elves, elves are awesome. What that means is, all the details about elves are going to be crucial to their bonding.

Not everybody cares about elves. There’s some people that couldn’t, whatever, leave elves, take elves, whatever. They don’t care. But somebody else, ohh, elves is a thing. Angels is a thing, dragons is a thing, goblins is a thing.

Maybe it’s a particular artist. Maybe they like a certain artist. Maybe they like a certain set. Maybe they like a certain mechanic. But there’s something that sort of, there’s that connection to, and then they start to go, oh, this is me. This is what I am.

I’ve seen that with cards. I’ve seen that with characters. That there’s just some going, hey, here’s who I am. Here’s how I relate to this game. And what that means is that all those little details, all the time that we sweat and pored over, somebody is going to soak that up and really enjoy it.

And for example, like one of the things is, we will make little tiny choices, and then—I have a lot of people writing in to me, obviously, with my blog and stuff, and my email, and one of the things I get all the time that’s very—feels good is someone saying, this little thing you did, ohh, I loved that thing.

And I get that a lot. And it’s funny, sometimes the little thing is multiple people like the same little thing, sometimes it’s a unique thing. Like I joke a lot that sometimes I’ll get people writing in and like, “Dear MaRo. Do you know it has been six years since you made a goat? Could you please make another goat? Goats are why Magic is awesome.” And to that person, like, they have just found something they can identify with.

And so this—I’m almost to work. But really what I’m trying to hammer home today is that it is very easy to look at your game and say, I’m doing eight thousand things. This one tiny thing, whatever, whatever, I can just let that go. I don’t have to spend a lot of time on it. And what I’m saying is, you do. You do. What makes the games that really—the successes work is, they sweated the details. The details mattered. That somebody put time and energy going, okay okay. What if this thing was the thing that made the—like, what if this is the thing that matters?

And that’s my point today. Every little detail will matter with somebody. Somebody’s going to bond over that detail. So you have to pay attention. You have to put in the time and energy to sweat the small stuff. You have to figure out—don’t just assume it doesn’t matter because it’s small. There is no thing that’s truly insignificant in your game. Everything matters. You have to think about it. How does it play? How does it look? How does it feel? How does it sound? All that matters.

And that one of the reasons I really think that Magic has been very successful is, we sweat the details. We—you know, there is deep background in all the characters and all the worlds and environments, and mechanically there’s all these synergies we build in, and you know—and that we do a lot of work so that you can have a lot of fun exploring and discovering things.

And not everything—one of the things that’s interesting is, and this is from the mechanical side, it’s not that I know every interaction. But what I do is, I maximize things so that they can create a lot of interesting interaction. It’s not that I know you’re going to take this card I just printed and put it with the card made fifteen years ago. I don’t necessarily—I don’t go through every single card we’ve ever made. But what I do do is I make cards going, oh. Well, this card will go well with this kind of card. And Magic has this kind of card. So people can go through all of them and find the ones they enjoy most.

But it is sweating the small stuff that pays dividends, because when somebody comes across something—and the thing that’s funny is, there’s a sense that when you look at something that’s tiny, you’re like, well, no one else notices detail. I’m the one who looks at this detail. Nobody else did.

And when they recognize that you, the game maker also cared about the detail, that’s the same as the first date. Like, the first date moment where, you know, you’re sitting across the table from your blind date or first date or whatever, and you’re like, “I like Thing X,” and they go (gasp) “I like Thing X!” And Thing X is not a popular thing. Thing X is something that’s kind of obscure. There’s this bonding moment.

And it’s the same thing when you’re in a game, and you’re a player, and you’re caring about this tiny moment, it’s like, “Ohh, they also cared about this tiny moment!” That’s a real connective tissue. That is like, ohh, this game and I, ooh. Maybe there’s a future in it.

And that quality is very important. And so I can’t stress enough that—I keep saying that a lot today. I can’t stress it enough. And I will stress it—apparently I can’t stress it enough, because I keep saying I can’t stress it enough.

I really—if there’s any takeaway from today, of today’s lesson, it is, once you’re done with your game, and you think you’ve done everything you can do, I’d say go back and look not at the big picture stuff. I mean, you need to spend a lot of time on the big picture stuff. But you need to do probably several passes where all you do is look at the small stuff. All you do is look at the little tiny details.

Like one of the things for example that I will do when I write my articles every week is, I will write the articles, and then I make sure when I go back through, when I’m re-reading, that I’m paying attention to the small things. You know, that I’m looking at the little tiny nuance of things, because the turn of phrase or of (???) little throwaway joke. Once again, that’s the kind of thing that will bond people.

What I name my headers. For example, I often will name my headers jokes that—I don’t expect everybody to get the joke. It’s not super important that you get every joke of every header I make. It’s not a big deal. But it’s important that you get some of them. And when you get them, they should mean something.

So like one of the things I do all the time is I love to quote movies. And it’s like, hey, maybe you don’t know that movie. But if you do—you know, people always write in. Oh, is that—was that Buckaroo Banzai? Was that—whatever I quoted. Is that the thing?

And the person who connects to it goes, ooh. I really like that thing. And that little detail, what you could think of as being a throwaway detail, that thing that—how could that possibly matter, that one little header, all of a sudden I’ve made a connection to somebody. All of a sudden, that person got to go, ooh. I too love this thing. The fact that MaRo and I both like the thing, oh, wow. That is a bonding moment.

And once again. I could spend less time and energy on that. I could just name my header for my column and not care about the finer details of it. But I do. And that pays dividends.

And so every part of your game. Once you finish your game, go back through your game. Multiple times. Not once. And pick one tiny aspect. And look at that aspect. And then say to yourself, have I maximized this aspect? Is this aspect as good as it can be? Let’s assume somebody’s looking at this. Have I made this as cool as it can be?

And even though everybody won’t look at everything, somebody will look—I don’t mean that one person will look at everything. I mean everything will be looked at by somebody. And, when you can bond when with people, when you can find a way in those small details to make that connection, to have the “Ooh, me too” moment, that is really, really powerful.

And my argument today is, it is those tiny moments, those tiny bonding emotional moments that are what make people fall in love with your game. That is where people sort of get pulled in emotionally and get connected.

And when I talk today about all the things, about moving from one to the next, it’s that emotional connection that makes someone go, that’s interesting. I’m going to try that. Ooh, okay, this rule’s interesting. I’m going to play that. Ooh, this game was fun, I’m going to play that again. This game was fun again, I’m going to keep playing it. I’m going to make this part of an identity who I am. I’m not—thi is not just a game, it is part of my identity.

That is a goal you want to get to. That is a goal—that if your game goes beyond just being a game, and becomes an extension of the person, then you have a player for life. Or at least for a long, long time. And that, my friends, is why details are so important. So remember. The details are where the player fall in love with your game.

Okay, guys, thank you very much, I’m now in my parking space, we all know what that means, it means it’s the end of my (misspeaks, laugh) I’m in my parking space, we all know what that means, it means it’s the end of my drive to work. Instead of making Magic, it’s time for me—I’m sorry. I really messed up my ending today. Instead of talking Magic, it’s time for me to be making Magic.

This podcast went so well! That’s the hardest part, by the way is, when I do—like, if I mess up when I pull out of the driveway, I can just redo it. But when I mess up at the end of a really good podcast, like today’s was really good, I enjoyed it, I just have to like mess it up. So I apologize, but anyway, it’s time for me to stop talking Magic and start making Magic. I’ll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.