Strategic Primer Distinctive: Do the Unexpected

Last week I described a second distinctive feature of Strategic Primer, my strategy game. Today’s post is about a third distinctive feature of the game: the player’s ability to “do the unexpected.”

In computer strategy games, and board games, and the like, each player has only a limited number of possible actions. If the game’s designer didn’t think of something a player might want to do, the player can’t do that (unless a “house rule” changes the game). In contrast, tabletop role-playing games, another significant influence on Strategic Primer, provide a framework for any reasonable action a player might think of.

Similarly, in Strategic Primer (particularly in this phase that I call “prototype” because the game isn’t ready for publication yet) the player can take his or her strategies—and the game as a whole—in a direction that the designer never dreamed of.