The hardest part of game design is knowing what not to change

By Andrii Savyntsev

Poker contains an unusual design challenge.

Many casino games leave room for new mechanics without disrupting the core experience. Poker leaves very little. Players instinctively understand hand rankings and constantly measure every outcome against them.

That makes poker a useful test case for a wider question: how much change can a familiar game absorb before it stops feeling like itself?

Over the past few years, the industry’s answer to creating a unique game has often arrived in the same form: another layer, another feature, another multiplier. We’ve found that players really enjoy these changes, and it does make games more unique.

But for game designers, this creates a more difficult question: which parts of a familiar game are actually open to change? Get the boundary right and players embrace the change, but get it wrong and the game starts to feel like something else.

Much of good game design comes down to managing that delicate balancing act.

What makes a game successful?

Multiplier mechanics have become a familiar presence across live casino. Yet many of them are additive rather than structural. They create moments of excitement without forcing players to rethink the game itself. The challenge begins when a new mechanic starts interacting with the parts of a game players understand instinctively. At that point, the question shifts from innovation to judgement.

This is where our job gets tricky because building a layer is relatively straightforward. Determining its limits is much harder. The risk is that players simply feel that something is off. The game no longer aligns with the expectations that brought them to the table in the first place.

That is why successful series design is less about establishing a universal formula and more about identifying the untouchable core of each individual format.

Every game protects something different

In blackjack, the core sits in the player’s decision-making. Hit, stand, split and double down are the choices that define the game. If a new mechanic starts changing the value of those decisions, basic strategy ceases to function as expected.

That is why, in Gravity Blackjack, the multiplier was isolated to side bets. The main hand remains exactly what players expect it to be.

Roulette presents a different challenge. Here, the design question is not decision-making but expectation. Gravity Roulette introduced multipliers of up to 1000x across inside bets while leaving outside bets untouched.

In both cases, the design started by identifying where change could add something new without interfering with the part of the game players already understood.

Poker leaves the least room for compromise

Poker proved the most interesting test because its hierarchy is the game.

Unlike blackjack, poker’s most recognisable structure is not a sequence of fixed player decisions but the hierarchy of the hands themselves. Unlike roulette, there is no clear distinction between different betting categories where value can be redistributed. Players continuously audit poker against a simple mental framework: which hands beat which.

That constraint shaped the design of Gravity Poker, which will be showcased at SBC Summit Lisbon ahead of its October release.

The game is built around Texas Hold’em, with players competing head-to-head against the dealer. Multipliers of up to x1000 sit on the AA+ and The Pocket side bets rather than the core game. The highlighted combination changes what is most valuable in a given round. It does not change what beats what.

A flush still beats a straight. A full house still beats a flush. The hierarchy remains intact.

That principle became the boundary the game could not cross.

The next challenge for game design

The lesson extends beyond poker.

As familiar mechanics spread across more formats, differentiation becomes less about finding a new layer and more about understanding where that layer belongs. Every game contains elements players will happily see evolve and others they consider non-negotiable.

The difficulty is that those boundaries are rarely obvious at first glance.

As the Gravity Series expands across familiar casino formats, each new game presents a different boundary to work around. What happens next? As designers continue exploring increasingly familiar games, they will encounter formats where there is no obvious place for a new layer to sit.

That is where the next generation of innovation will be tested. Not by what it adds, but by what it chooses to leave alone.

ICONIC21 is participating in SBC Summit Lisbon, 29 September to 1 October. Book a meeting with the team by reaching out on the ICONIC21 page on LinkedIn or visiting the website.