Eventually, I got good at... «Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences»

Eventually, I got good at predicting movements. Map knowledge was easy, and aiming challenges were a nonissue. But Unreal Tournament wasn’t done. It reinvented itself again, into its final, consummate form: a pokerlike game of psychological trickery. I knew what my options were, and what my opponent’s options were, and how each of these options interacted. He knew all of this, too, and I knew that he knew, and he knew that I knew. When both players have a crystal-clear map of the mechanical game in their heads and the understanding to make near-perfect choices, the only thing left to manipulate is the mind itself. So Unreal Tournament became about provoking emotional outbursts, mixing up strategies to remain unpredictable, reading the opponent’s mind better than he can read yours. It became about wrapping your mind around his and destroying him. I never mastered that final reinvention because it is limitlessly deep.