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Game Design Stories · episode 5 of 7

Touch That Is Fun, Not Mean

Let players touch each other's plans, but make the touch start a new idea, not stop one.

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  1. Narrator: From Spark and Anvil and TableForge — this is Meddle, in chapter 1 of the TableForge cast.
  2. Narrator: This drama uses an AI-generated voice. Voiced via Gemini 2.5.
  3. Narrator: Meddle designs the way players affect EACH OTHER — the blocking, the trading, the friendly rivalry — and Meddle walks a careful line.
  4. Meddle: A game is more alive when players can touch each other's plans. If everyone just plays their own solitaire side by side, why are you even at the same table? But there's a catch — the touch has to be FUN, not mean. There's a world of difference between "clever rivalry" and "getting picked on."
  5. Narrator: Interaction — but the kind that makes friends laugh, not sulk.
  6. Meddle: Good interaction is: I took the spot you wanted, so now you pivot — clever, a little cheeky, and you have a comeback. Bad interaction is: everyone piles on the leader, or one player gets knocked out and sits there for an hour. The test is — after I meddle with you, do you grin and scheme back, or do you just feel stuck?
  7. Narrator: Meddle once made a game where you could send another player all the way back to start.
  8. Meddle: It felt spicy in design. In play? Whoever got sent back stopped having fun instantly — and the whole table ganged up on whoever was ahead. It wasn't rivalry, it was bullying with rules. People left the table upset. That's the opposite of a game.
  9. Narrator: So now Meddle designs interaction with an escape hatch.
  10. Meddle: I make sure that when you get meddled with, you always have a response — a way to adapt, not just a wound to nurse. Take my spot? Fine, I'll take a better one. The touch should open a new decision, never just take away my turn.
  11. Narrator: A designer's game let players freeze each other in place.
  12. Meddle: See how the frozen player just... waits, doing nothing? That's not fun rivalry, that's a time-out. Change it so blocking them just makes them CHANGE plans, not STOP. Now the poke starts a new idea instead of ending their turn.
  13. Narrator: The designer softened the block into a redirect, and the table's groans turned into laughing "oh, it's ON" energy.
  14. Meddle: Let players touch each other's plans — but make the touch fun. A poke that sparks a comeback, never one that just hurts.
  15. Narrator: You've been listening to a Spark and Anvil chapter, written by the Spark and Anvil writing team for ages 9 to 14.
  16. Narrator: Apps stay free forever.
  17. Narrator: Curriculum aligned to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.
  18. Narrator: Released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 for educational reuse. Visit Spark and Anvil for the full transcript.