Craft Critique (Koster Method)

Most game criticism only touches one layer: is it fun, does the story work, is the combat satisfying. This method deliberately separates the layers first and compares them at the end, because the most useful craft lessons live in whether the layers agree with each other, not in any one layer alone. A game can have a hollow mismatch between big narrative ambition and a shallow, generic system underneath it, or the opposite: mechanically ambitious work wrapped in thin, forgettable flavor text. Neither is visible if you only look at one layer.

Read the whole workflow before starting — the order matters. Set aside personal enjoyment of the game until the final step; judging fun early contaminates every layer that follows with a feeling you haven't yet traced back to its source.

When this is (and isn't) the right tool