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 Easy E wrote:

 Valander wrote:
I have to admit, the smart alec in me is wanting to create a game called Heartbreaker that is nothing more than a thinly veiled reskin of some other game with random tweaks that add nothing to the gameplay...

I think this idea is hilarious! However, it might be too obscure of a reference for most people to get "the joke".

Yeah, but I'd get it (and so would everyone in this thread)....

With more reflection I think a bigger point that this thread has brought up, for me at least, is that as game designers, it's important that we turn a critical eye to our own designs and recognize that often we'll probably start with a few small tweaks on an existing system that we've seen or played, and that it's important to continually go back and re-examine that to make sure that anything we are changing adds something to the experience. I don't think you're making a heartbreaker if you use the same initiative system as, say, Bolt Action, but it's important to see if that system delivers the experience you're wanting to create.

So with that, I'm going to go for my own personal definition of a heartbreaker being a game that uses previously existing mechanics, but only for the sake of those mechanics and any tweaks to them, that fails to deliver the experience the designer hoped for. Thus, breaking the designer's heart.

It's said that you know a game design is finished not when you can't think of anything more to add, but when you can't find anything else to remove.