Game Design Bartle Archetype Audit

SKILL.md

---
name: game-design-bartle-archetype-audit
description: Audit a game, feature, event, progression system, social system, live-ops loop, or onboarding flow through the lens of Bartle player archetypes: Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers. Use when evaluating who a design motivates, who it neglects, whether a feature over-serves one archetype at the expense of others, how a system will be perceived by different motivational player types, or why engagement is uneven across different player motivations.
---

# Game Design Bartle Archetype Audit

Audit a design by asking which Bartle-type players it serves, frustrates, excludes, or accidentally overfeeds.

Use this skill to evaluate how a game or feature lands with four classic player archetype lenses:
- **Achievers** - driven by progress, status, optimization, completion, and measurable advancement
- **Explorers** - driven by discovery, experimentation, hidden depth, and systemic curiosity
- **Socializers** - driven by connection, expression, cooperation, recognition, and shared play
- **Killers** - driven by domination, disruption, competition, advantage, and impact over others

Treat these as motivational lenses, not rigid personality boxes.

## Core principle

A feature rarely serves all player archetypes equally.

That is not automatically a problem. The real question is whether the imbalance is intentional, healthy, and compatible with the broader game. A design can succeed by strongly serving one archetype, but it can also fail by unintentionally alienating others or by overfeeding one motivational pattern until it distorts the whole experience.

## What to produce

Generate:
1. **Audit target** - what is being reviewed and what it is supposed to do
2. **Archetype-by-archetype reading** - how each Bartle lens experiences the design
3. **Motivational profile** - which archetypes are strongly served, weakly served, or actively harmed
4. **Imbalance diagnosis** - where the design overcommits, neglects, or creates unhealthy tension
5. **Recommendations** - what to strengthen, soften, separate, or clarify

## Process

### 1. Define the audit target
Clarify:
- what is being audited
- what the feature or system is supposed to achieve
- what player segment it seems primarily aimed at
- whether it is core, optional, early-game, mid-game, endgame, or event-based

### 2. Audit for Achievers
Ask:
- Does this provide clear goals, progress, ranks, milestones, or measurable completion?
- Is advancement legible and satisfying?
- Are there optimization hooks or mastery ladders?
- Does the system reward effort and planning in a visible way?
- Does it create grind without meaningful payoff?

Look for:
- progression clarity
- completion pressure
- reward cadence
- rank/status markers
- optimization opportunities
- scoreboard or collection incentives

### 3. Audit for Explorers
Ask:
- Does this create opportunities for discovery, experimentation, hidden depth, or surprising interactions?
- Is there anything to uncover, test, or learn beyond the obvious path?
- Does the feature reward curiosity, or punish deviation from the intended route?
- Is the system too solved, too explicit, or too shallow to explore?

Look for:
- secrets or hidden layers
- systemic depth
- expressive experimentation
- optional discovery
- mystery and possibility
- non-obvious interactions

### 4. Audit for Socializers
Ask:
- Does this support cooperation, expression, social recognition, gifting, helping, belonging, or conversation?
- Are there reasons to share, show, support, or coordinate?
- Does it create social presence or only social metrics?
- Does the system feel socially alive or socially sterile?

Look for:
- communication value
- collaboration loops
- group identity
- mutual dependency
- recognition and expression
- emotionally meaningful social rituals

### 5. Audit for Killers
Ask:
- Does this allow players to dominate, disrupt, outplay, pressure, or visibly outperform others?
- Is there direct or indirect competition?
- Does the system create status through relative power?
- Is competitive energy healthy here, or does it poison the experience?
- Could killer-facing incentives distort the feature for everyone else?

Look for:
- PvP or rivalry energy
- visible advantage
- denial or disruption power
- dominance loops
- competitive prestige
- asymmetric leverage over others

### 6. Build the archetype profile
For each archetype, rate the design as:
- **Strongly served**
- **Moderately served**
- **Weakly served**
- **Actively frustrated**

Use this format:

| Archetype | Rating | Why | Likely Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Achievers | ... | ... | ... |
| Explorers | ... | ... | ... |
| Socializers | ... | ... | ... |
| Killers | ... | ... | ... |

### 7. Diagnose imbalance and cross-archetype friction
Ask:
- Is the feature clearly built for one archetype while pretending to serve all?
- Does one archetype's reward structure damage another's experience?
- Is the design too narrow for the place it occupies in the game?
- Does the game need this system to be broad, or is specialization acceptable here?

Common imbalance patterns:
- **Achiever trap** - everything becomes checklist, grind, ranking, and completion pressure
- **Explorer starvation** - system is legible but dead, with nothing to discover or test
- **Social shell** - other people are visible, but there is no real social meaning
- **Killer contamination** - competitive pressure warps a space that should feel safe, expressive, or cooperative
- **False inclusivity** - feature signals broad appeal but meaningfully serves only one player type

### 8. Convert findings into design actions
For each major issue, specify:
- **Archetype affected**
- **Current issue**
- **Design cause**
- **Suggested change**
- **Expected effect**

## Response structure

### Audit Target
- ...

### Achievers
- Strengths: ...
- Weaknesses: ...

### Explorers
- Strengths: ...
- Weaknesses: ...

### Socializers
- Strengths: ...
- Weaknesses: ...

### Killers
- Strengths: ...
- Weaknesses: ...

### Archetype Profile
- ...

### Imbalance Diagnosis
- ...

### Recommendations
1. ...
2. ...
3. ...

## Fast mode
- Which archetype is this mainly serving?
- Which archetype is getting the least value?
- Which archetype could be actively harmed by this design?
- Is that imbalance intentional and acceptable?
- What one change would improve the weakest archetype fit without breaking the strongest one?

## References

Read these when useful:
- `references/bartle-notes.md` for a concise interpretation of the four archetypes in game-design terms
- `references/failure-patterns.md` for common archetype imbalance shapes

## Working principle

A feature does not need to satisfy every Bartle archetype equally.
But if it strongly privileges one motivational type, that should be by design, not by accident.