So there’s this chance that the worst player will come out ahead just because of this random thing. Like if you have two heavies against each other, the better heavy will probably win- unless one of them gets random crits. The dumbest pyro against the best spy-the spy is going to die. Sometimes it also depends on class balance. But in practice, it has this effect that… well typically, you go into an encounter in TF2 and the player who's better will win. Is it good or bad? I don't know, it's just a mechanic. On its own, it means nothing it's just a mechanic. Sometimes you'll be firing and all of a sudden shiny, magic bullets will start coming out of your gun that do tons of damage, especially at long range. In TF2, they have a mechanic called random crits. The idea is that when you make a game, all you're doing is implementing mechanics, right? But the interaction of those mechanics and how players work creates dynamics – let me give an example. Zach: We use MDA: Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics. MP: What's interesting to me is that the mechanics seem fairly well married to the educational content. In the second half, we transition to some details about his studio’s upcoming game (Ironclad Tactics), lessons learned from SpaceChem, and how the studio is adjusting its process accordingly, especially with respect to tutorial design. The first half of this two-part conversation jumps into the design philosophy that Zachtronics uses to design educational games, the challenges of creating games that incorporate programming concepts, and Zach's thoughts on games and learning.