At the end of my last post, I mentioned there are fundamental ingredients that constitute a game beyond just adding points. In his excellent exposé on game design (that I mentioned before), Sebastian Deterling identifies seven game design principles that form a good round-up of these ingredients:

• Games set S.M.A.R.T. goals
• Games present clear, bite-sized actions and choices
• The relations between the actions/choices and the goals are clear
• Your current status is absolutely clear
• Games give instant and unambiguous feedback
• The challenges games present get increasingly difficult
• Games create social comparison

In essence, these principles are another way to phrase what Salen & Zimmerman have called meaningful play. Perhaps the principle of recoverable loss could be added to the list, because it is an essential ingredient of the informed trial-and-error behavior that characterizes a lot of game play.

When applying game design to organizations, these principles form a good checklist. However, many of the principles are hard to apply directly outside a computer game context. But when crafting a rule set that triggers action and lets desired behavior emerge, principles such as the ones mentioned here are a good way to achieve the desired dynamic.