think or thwim

Will Wright designs his games like the toys he played with in Montessori school.

Montessori taught me the joy of discovery…It showed you can become interested in pretty complex theories, like Pythagorean theory, say, by playing with blocks. It’s all about learning on your terms, rather than a teacher explaining stuff to you. SimCity comes right out of Montessori—if you give people this model for building cities, they will abstract from it principles of urban design.

In this TED talk he describes his game design philosophy and demonstrates his upcoming game, Spore, which he says is not so much a game as an imagination amplifier.