In October I published an article called Mathematics & Game Design, Part One. Therein I wrote about some of the problems that appear when games make their math too obvious. But in closing I stated, “Though I think math should largely be hidden from players, designers absolutely need to think about it.”

In this article I want to look at the other side of that coin by examining two games that had potential, but where I was let down by the lack of mathematical analysis applied to the games — which ultimately resulted in them not standing up to, at least, my play (though in both cases they would have stood up to more casual play, if players did not think about the math).
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