respect the player's intelligence with subtle messages, slowly built
- players were sad when games buried their themes, though this was often brought up as something unfortunate, not outright negative.
- players hated when games were blunt or preachy, preferring when games let them figure things out for themselves.
- Be subtle in your presentation, though that doesn’t mean you have to neuter your message.
- Don’t judge the player, let the player judge themselves by seeing the effects of their in-game actions.
- rely on procedural rhetoric
- players liked philosophy snippets
- games take a while to beat. This lets designers build up their themes slowly.
