While looking through Jeff Warrender's journal entry about the 30 Years War, the format struck me as a good way to organize thoughts about a game, a good guideline to keep the game on track. I have boiled down the format and made it a bit more generic here. In additional posts I'll apply this guideline to a game of mine and see if I've addressed these issues. This is more or less a first draft, so please comment on how the list could be improved. Also feel free to quote this message and fill in the blanks for your own game.
Scope of the Game
What is the theme of the game? What will the players accomplish, collectively?
Player Representation
Who does a player represent? What will players accomplish, individually?
Core Mechanics
What is/are the core mechanics for this game? Do they match the theme?
Combat
Is combat appropriate in this game? Is it a major or minor aspect? Do the mechanics reflect that?
Politics
Are Politics (negotiations) appropriate for this game? Are they a major or minor aspect? Do the mechanics reflect that?
Winning the game
What are the player goals? When is the game over, and how do you know if you’ve won?
First I'll go through the exercise with a published game that everybody is familiar with (Puerto Rico), then I'll do so with All For One, the game I've put the most thought into, and talked about the most on these boards. Aww heck, I might as well do it for Terra Prime as well.
Scope of the Game
What is the theme of the game? What will the players accomplish, collectively?
Puerto Rico: The theme is city building and production. Players will be building up Puerto Rico with plantations and buildings, and producing recources to sell for money or ship for VPs.
All For One: The theme is doing missions in the world of the Three Musketeers. Players will be manipulating board elements in an attempt to meet the criteria on their mission cards.
Terra Prime: The theme is space exploration and colonization, as well as resource collection. Players will be searching for and colonizing planets and bringing resources from those planets back to their home base.
Player Representation
Who does a player represent? What will players accomplish, individually?
Puerto Rico: The players represent individuals who have their own section of Puerto Rico in which to build buildings and grow crops. Each player will attempt to make their section better ("worth more points" so to speak) than their opponents.
All For One: Players dont associate directly with characters. If anything, perhaps the players represent writers, writing bits of the story as the game goes on. The players are attempting to get their missions completed - which is to say they are writing parts of the story based on the cards in their hand. Each player favors one of the characters, and so wants that character to be in the story as much as possible, but mostly wants to get their own storylines completed.
Terra Prime: Players represent members of the Terran Federation, the body responsible for charting and colonizing the far reaches of the galaxy. Each player will be exploring and colonizing, upgrading their ship and delivering resources. Players are in competition for promotion, so each wants to act efficiently. Players can try to do things on their own, or utilize other players' colonies, thereby sharing points with them.
Core Mechanics
What is/are the core mechanics for this game? Do they match the theme?
Puerto Rico: The core mechanic is Role Selection, which does not correlate much to the idea of running a building or production franchise on the island. One turn you're the Mayor, the next you're a Tradesman.
All For One: The core mechanic is pickup/deliver. The theme involves bringing particular items/people to particular places. Chasing Plot Tokens around the board and bringing them to the correct locations represents this fairly well.
Terra Prime: The core mechanics here are Pickup/Deliver and action management. There is an economic system as well which should drive decisions about which resources to deliver. The action matches the theme well.
Combat
Is combat appropriate in this game? Is it a major or minor aspect? Do the mechanics reflect that?
Puerto Rico: There is no combat in Puerto Rico, it is not needed.
All For One: There is combat in All For One. It is intended to be a minor aspect of the game. As such, the resolution is quick and easy. However, so as not to be trivial, there are incentives to drive combat decisions.
Terra Prime: There is combat in Terra prime, and it is a minor aspect of the game. In order to make exploration dangerous, there are Hostile Aliens on some tiles. The further out you explore, the more likely (and the more difficult) aliens you will find. To add strategic depth, there is a way to prepare aand fight aliens, in which case they are worth points toward winning. Since the combat is not intended to be a major portion of the game, it's resolution is quick and easy. There are no decisions to be made during combat, only whether or not to persue combat.
Politics
Are Politics (negotiations) appropriate for this game? Are they a major or minor aspect? Do the mechanics reflect that?
Puerto Rico: There is no politics or negotiation in Puerto Rico, it is not needed.
All For One: There is no politics or negotiation in All For One, it is not needed.
Terra Prime: There is no negotiation between players in Terra Prime.
Winning the game
What are the player goals? When is the game over, and how do you know if you’ve won?
Puerto Rico: Players are accumulating Victory points through building buildings and shipping goods. the goal is to accumulate the most victory points. the game ends when one of three triggers occurs, after which the player with the most points is the winner. Points are hidden to help prevent Analysis Paralysis and to obscure who is winning until the very end.
All For One: Players and characters are both accumulating favors from the king or cardinal by doing missions (and fighting duels). The game ends when the pool of favors (or victory points) is exhausted. Players add their score to that of the character that they favor, highest score wins. It's unclear who is winning before the endgame because noone knows which character's score will go to which player.
Terra Prime: The game ends after one of three triggers. These triggers are based on player action - when one player places most of his Colony markers, or if all players place some of them, or if 'enough' space tiles are explored. Once this is done, players count their score. Scoring comes from delivering resources, colonizing planets, and defeating aliens.