2026-09-22 · essay
What Does It Mean to Be Good at a Game? Skill, Knowledge, or Where You Look
In a playtest of my own puzzle, one person solved the board in three minutes and another took twenty. The slower one knew every standard line. Into the Breach (Subset Games, 2018) shows you every enemy's next move on the board, and still the gap between good and bad players is obvious. If the difference is not knowledge, what is being good? I sat Descartes and Polanyi down facing each other.
