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As a designer, I can't think of games from an academic viewpoint. I appreciate that there are those that do, but my brain just can't work that way. There are times where I feel like I'm a failure because I don't even know how to pronounce "heuristic" much less define it properly.
I've bought a few game design books over the years, but could never bring myself to read them. That level of deconstruction kills the process of designing for me personally. When I design, I'm driven by working towards playing the game giving a certain emotional experience.
That's not something I can exactly break down or put into words all the time. I just know what I'm after & I push my ideas towards what I believe what will produce that experience in play.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, but that's all part of design. Learn, adapt, try again.
Constantly failing & adapting is all part of the experience, of course.
Constantly failing & adapting is all part of the experience, of course.
I recently picked up "You Said This Would Be Fun" by @belltowergames and forced myself to start reading it - driven more by the fact that I'm a fan of Jeff as a designer than desire to read about game design, if I'm being honest.
As I've been reading the book the last week or 2 (a little over halfway done now), it's been fascinating to read about things & think, "oh yeah, I do that", & then read about other things & think, "that never crosses my mind & likely won't in the future".
Obviously, there is no right way to design board games. Just different approaches driven by our own personalities & individual strengths / weaknesses. All of this rambling by me is just me thinking about how different so many designer's brains must function. Fascinating.
and no matter how many books, videos, or articles I might consume about game design in the future, I don't think I'll ever get to the point of bothering to remember how to pronounce "heuristics" correctly or think too deeply on them from an academic standpoint. 
