This is an entry in a series about game design, and what tools we as a design collective use when assessing and deciding what to create, develop and publish.
I am having a bit of a day, and sometimes writing about something completely different helps. In this case, considering an entirely specific issue we are having at DVC Games: What should we publish at the end of 2026 / early 2027? Time is running a bit thin on this decision, but after considering over 50 options, including pitches externally and our own designs, we don't have one just yet. So I have been meditating on why, and realizing that, in a broad sense, the same 'issues' come up, specifically the same three.
For the sake of positivity and growth, I now reframe those issues as goals: If anything, we strive to create games that 'hook, flow, and twist'. That is a bit of jargon woo-woo, sure, but it is a good way to bookmark the thought. Let me try to break it down, especially in relation to our most critical successes: Corvids, Here Lies, and Pacts.
The Hook
This seems to be a big part of sell sheets, but also our passion when starting a new project. It is the thing that gets us buzzing, the fantasy, the appeal. Without the hook, the sale of the game is difficult. The sale of the first play is also very difficult. Getting stoked and inspired over and over again through the development process is tricky. It is often thematic and mechanical, as well as easy to understand.
Where it worked: "You are crows digging through the trash" promised a solid fantasy, more solid than we expected. It also drove a lot of design and aesthetic decisions. Taking it seriously was good too; one peer suggested pushing more cartoon-ish but that felt like it undercut that this was a meaningful fantasy hook, not just a silly one. "You are one of the world's greatest detectives" instead sells a different notion, one that has a preset audience that is hungry for more; a genre hook. Pacts has a little of both (Celtic mythology and recognizable genre touches), but it seems the appeal was what I can call a threshold hook. Is it hard to teach? No. Hard to transport? no. Hard to understand? No. Hard to admire? No. Hard to make time for? No. Hard to have enough players for? No. Outside the other hooks, Pacts is gentle, even for a challenging two-player duel. It does very little to drive a player away, which a lot of games do in various ways, big and small. I would argue that the threshold hook is a powerful tool for small card games that may feel stale when it comes to theme or genre; the risk of playing anyway is so low. Thing Thing arguably never desired a theme for this reason. It take two minutes to teach, it's cards, so what? Countless times now people somehow have time to slip in a round of Thing Thing.
Where it didn't: I can only, at this time, call a game 'disengaged' if it doesn't fulfill this. It doesn't start a conversation. It isn't attractive. It presents a theme or experience that is not desirable or curious. It falls outside of familiar genres. It presents as hard to understand, hard to teach, and hard to play. Signal has a strong fantasy hook, which makes up for its incredible lack of genre or threshold hooks. TYPESET is all genre hook.
The Flow
It has to be playable. And it has to be really playable in this market. The more it flows, the more 'family-friendly' it is treated. The more teachable. The more immersive. There are so many benefits. And while this is mostly a mechanical and rules process, flow also comes in flavors. There is the flow of play that is defined for me by the actual taking of turns, the lack of 'fiddling', but there is also the flow of attention, where there is enough going on to keep players consistently engaged. There is also a flow (and fairness) of time, where the game ends when it feels it should end, and a flow of parts, where elements don't feel tagged on or unnecessary. We work with a small box so trimming and streamlining is of interest, but this often fights against weird rulesets that try to simplify but keep strategic depth.
Where it worked: The turns in Corvids are pretty short, and player decisions run a solid clock of the pile of cards whittling down. Not to mention your turn is only 2.5 things: Peck, pick, and maybe steal. Here Lies is played popcorn-style, where turn order is discarded for debating optimal card play in real time, with a lot of the slow 'let's submit a guess' stuff glossed over as an active listening mechanic. Pacts is only six rounds, with two that score; enough time to make a couple of errors, and not enough time to be trapped in what feels like an endless process of playing out a game that feels over. Plus the simplicity of actions: Place, Move, Ability, and Points are the only card types, and the complexity instead exists in a finite format on the faction cards. Karnak has this too, with only three possible actions, but a board without specific placement rules, and where you are engaged at all times by the possibility someone may undo your work, or present a chance for you to cheat and build on theirs.
Where it didn't: Clunky. That seems to be the term these days for when this doesn't work. The game has mechanics that don't fit together. The game is the wrong length (almost always too long). The actual actions are confusing or thematically conflicting, and the phases of play too cumbersome. There is a genre part to this; we forgive longer, larger games for clunkiness, but our games are too small. Where Scream Park is clunky to teach, it is lightning fast to play to make up for it. It is the source of pain for quite a few designs that seem to hit our other goals, and only playtesting, really, and some good eureka moments seem to discover how to fit the pieces together in a cleaner way.
The Twist
This is perhaps the trickiest one to handle, but it is also very visceral. If the hook is the 'why', and the flow is the 'how', the twist is the 'wow'. It is often described as depth, or a good puzzle, or the absolute unique feeling of this specific type of play (a lot of folks refer to Signal and Playthings as incomparable). When selling the game, it is often the second selling point. It isn't enough that you are making categories and shedding cards in Thing Thing, but if your categories are too broad, other players get to shed cards too, forcing you to draw. It is the revelation that you only score Karnak at the very end, meaning your work can be undone, and you can take credit for the work of others, by the end of the game. The twist, in many forms, somehow supports the game thematically and as a complete package, but undercuts the hook and the flow at the same time, providing the critical balance against the game feeling one-dimensional. Sometimes, for us, 'cozy' games are one-dimensional, and therefor the word may overlap with the criticism of there being no twist, no punch, no bite, no 'wow'.
Where it worked: Best measure of this comes from how the game presents a turn of the screw. It isn't enough that the game is cool, appealing, and plays well, but it has to dig one level deeper. There is likely a mechanic that supports this. Corvids has a dual-layer mechanic in the flipping of cards, not just to get what you want, but to find and hide nests for the mischievous and thematic stealing mechanic. Here Lies holds the players hands by having the Lead Investigator give regular feedback on how the game is progressing, discouraging outlandish theories in favor of circling back around on what was or wasn't openly discussed. This creates an investigative experience about finding a single answer, yet allowing free-wheeling open discussion. Pacts isn't just about the splitting of the pacts themselves, but the asymmetry of the factions and the slight secret of the Court cards, making every deal far more tense, and driving repeat plays to explore the factions and how they mess up the game's core loop.
Where it didn't: We don't have an issue with cozy games. We just don't seem to make cozy games, really. The upcoming Inkwell is fairly cozy, sort of, until a player takes your supplies or advances the abbot, shortening the game length, making you question your own perfectionism. But we are sometimes bothered by games that lack what some call frisson. Friction. As of now we are arguing about how to add friction to a sequel to Scream Park, but it doesn't have what we call 'the corrupting mechanic', something inspired by real life that makes that friction, much like the VIPs in Scream Park. A way to see your work differently than just 'easily' building up your score and making good choices. The same goes to a few other designs that seem to lack difficulty, or depth, or that memorable take-away that makes a game fight to be made.
Conclusion
I don't have one! I wish I could say some design we have is ready to roll, but it means a lot that games that weren't fully cooked when we committed to them (Scream Park, Here Lies, Playthings) still each had the hook, the flow, and the twist in place, or at least nearby. But perhaps analyzing with this will unstick us, and it will be interesting to see what game comes out of the conversation.