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Re:Threes: The Rip-offs and Making Our Original Game by gkoberger on Thursday March 27, 2014 @08:46PM (#7484567)
It's almost a shame they spent so much time talking about 2048; it takes away from the point I gleaned: to make something simple and "obvious" takes a ton of work. I've spent months on designs, and felt bad because the end design was so obvious. "Why didn't I think of that in the first place?"
Re:Threes: The Rip-offs and Making Our Original Game by mattgreenrocks on Thursday March 27, 2014 @09:43PM (#7484788)
Very true. It's easy to look at something someone else has done and say, "not a big deal." You don't see the sweat or the design process.

It's actually a big compliment, too. It signifies the design is conceptually sound and as small as it could be.

Re:Threes: The Rip-offs and Making Our Original Game by ctdonath on Friday March 28, 2014 @03:02PM (#7489267)
It may be very hard to make an idea's time come, but once it arrives it's almost trivial & unstoppable. The "four minute mile" (running) was considered impossible ... until someone did it (under adverse conditions to boot), then it almost immediately became the norm for serious runners. The tablet as we know it was pursued for decades with resounding failure ... until Jobs nailed it with the iPod Touch, then variants proliferated. Threes took months of nuanced polishing and nobody had anything like it ... until it was released, then 2048 et al was created & became unstoppable almost overnight.