Painter or Sculptor?

Are you an additive game designer, or a subtractive game designer? Or, both, depending on the game?

An additive game designer is like a painter, adding paint and texture to a painting, building the image up from a blank slate. Once something is added to the painting, it’s never removed. It might be covered up, reworked, or changed, but never removed. Some game designers can take a basic concept of a game (like a sketch) and build it up to a full game by adding just enough additional elements. Each card, dice, or token is well thought out before being added to the game.

Subtractive game design is more or less the opposite. All of the cards, dice, and tokens are added to the game design early, and then parts are removed until the game emerges. This is more like a sculptor that can chisel away at a blank stone until all that remains is a statue. Subtractive game designers can whittle their game down to an efficient, fun game.

Both approaches have their merits and their downsides. An additive design can easily get bloated, as more and more elements are added to the design to solve problems. Subtractive design can remove the fun of the game by taking away the enjoyable parts.

And, sometimes, you need to go through cycles of both to get your game where it needs to be. Safemaster, a design I’ve been working on for several years, has gone through a few additive and subtractive cycles. The design started pretty simple, but during covid I did a bunch of virtual playtesting. During that time, the game was in a additive cycle. It was very easy to add components, cards, etc to the design virtually. But, after a while, I realized that the game had gotten bloated and complicated. So I started a subtractive cycle and started stripping away parts that weren’t fun, weren’t working, and didn’t add to the core experience I was targeting. Now, the game is in a much simpler stage, and I can start adding back in more of the parts that made the game fun.

What cycle is your design in right now? Additive, or subtractive?