Game Design Granular Player Motivation Audit

Audit a design by asking which granular motivation segments it serves, excludes, overloads, or misunderstands.

Use this skill to evaluate how a game, feature, flow, or system lands across a detailed player motivation taxonomy. Treat the archetypes as motivational lenses, not rigid human categories.

Core principle

A feature does not need to serve every motivation profile equally.

The real question is whether the pattern is intentional, healthy, and appropriate for the feature's role in the product. A narrow feature can be good. An accidentally narrow feature, or one that pretends to be broad while serving only one motivation profile, usually creates confusion, coldness, or churn.

This taxonomy is especially useful because it gives you two layers at once:

• motivation themes explaining what psychological needs the design activates
• archetypes predicting who will respond well, who will feel indifferent, and who may be alienated

Start with the source notes

Before auditing, read references/granular-taxonomy-notes.md.