Games are expensive, complicated and held together by an alarming combination of specialised technology, production planning and at least one tool that everybody is frightened to update. When a team spends months creating an encounter, cinematic, environment or narrative sequence, it naturally wants the player to experience that work correctly. The problem begins when protecting every authored moment prevents the player from meaningfully participating in the game. The player can move, aim, select dialogue and activate objects, but they can’t genuinely construct an outcome. Their role is to confirm a sequence that has already been decided. Systemic design asks designers to let go of some direct control. Instead of authoring every solution, we author rules, relationships, spaces and constraints that allow players to form solutions for themselves...
