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There is a type of game that I think of as being like the Cold War. Throughout the game, nothing actually happens, but it is very tense. There may be some strategic play, as each player jockeys for position, and maybe some alliances are made and dropped, but while the game continues, all that happens is that the temperature of the game — the size of the potential plays — keeps increasing. Then, at the very end, and unlike the Cold War, the situation explodes, and it's all over.

Buckaroo and Jenga are good examples. Throughout the game, the bronco or tower becomes more and more unstable, and the amount of stuff that can fall off it increases. Psychologists have been arguing for some years about why that should be fun, but there is definitely something about sharing this continual increase in tension and then all releasing it together.

Good jokes often work in the best way, and the best ones put off the expected punchline as long as possible: consider Ronnie Corbett's extended monologues, the minutes-long set-ups often featured on The Goon Show, and what is IMO the best example of this sort of humour, the Only Fools and Horses episode with the chandeliers. From the very start, you know how it's going to end, and when it does, it's hilarious.

There are other games with cold elements. Monetary acquisition games, like Monopoly and Game of Life, have the escalation element, transactions that increase in size over the course of the game. This helps to even out early imbalances, making it less likely that the result is decided before the end-game. But these games don't have the loading and release of tension, so they aren't as fun. Bidding games, like poker and auctions, have both elements, but if you lose in the game, you lose in real life, which adds to the excitement at the cost of fun.

It is often said that the problem with computer games is that they are designed by programmers rather than game designers: by people whose interest is making a technically brilliant simulation, rather than people whose interest is helping people to have fun. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that very few computer games are in the Cold War format. Introversion Software's Defcon was a pretty good attempt, but doesn't quite manage it because it doesn't discourage attacking enough, and because the temperature doesn't increase as the game goes on. In fact, it has a Go-esque endgame, with temperature decreasing as people mop up the remaining points.

The other area where I think games could be stronger is in skill, or perceived skill. The most enduring board games are the ones where adults and children can play together on a level playing field, usually ensured by adding large doses of randomness to make skill affect the outcome less. I'd like to see this taken to its logical extreme with games where the players' actions can't at all affect who wins (if there is a single winner), only how stylish the victory is. The aim is not just to give ‘weaker’ players a chance of winning, but to make people take the outcome less seriously, to make them play for the taking part, not the winning.

But I think the perception of the skill/chance balance is more important than the balance itself. Strategy games (both turn-based and real-time) are widely seen as being pure skill, but players still complain that they lost because of the smallest chance factors, like starting location or prevailing wind. OTOH, complaints about losing apparently pure-chance games through bad luck only really occur when money is at stake. I hypothesize that people feel less like their honour is at stake at a pure-chance game.

Without some external factor like gambling, there is no reason to want to win. Nobody would play Russian roulette with a cap gun, because there is no tension at all. But with games of skill, winning is a proof of skill, a way of showing off. For very competitive people, this can be more important than a monetary bet. Even with a large chance element, such as in Risk, Monopoly, or poker, the bragging rights of winning are worth enough to make the game worth trying at.

But too much of this makes it go sour. If people are willing to try really hard to win, they're willing the cheat, to take it too seriously, to whine and make excuses after losing. It is said that Esquimaux have at least one word for snow and that this reflects the fact that snow is a thing they want to refer to. We have at least one saying, “It's not the winning, it's the taking part,” and this reflects the fact that for competitive people, winning the game is so important they sometimes forget they're supposed to be having fun.

So my aim for a “can only affect coolness” game is to make the bragging rights enough to make the game interesting, but to make people unafraid of losing. The winner can talk post-game about how cool his final move was, and the losers can make counter-claims about how much cooler theirs would have been if they'd come off correctly. This reflects the antidote to competitiveness that I use on myself.

“There isn't a competitive bone in my body,” I keep telling my family, and every time I do they fall about laughing. I even have a way of saying it now, with an innocent, defensive tone, slightly aggrieved that anyone would suggest otherwise.

What gets me in competitive situations is not the outcome, but the tension of playing. The effort of trying to tip the balance slightly is far too strong: it takes all the fun out of it. I find playing games against people much better or worse than me vastly more fun than playing against people equal in skill. I don't mind losing when I'm expected to lose, I just don't like situations where I can act to decide the matter.

So when I get into such a situation, and I feel the pressure is becoming intense, I take deliberate steps to make it less serious. I try a completely new strategy I've never used before. I try some high-risk but cool manoeuvre. I switch to nonsensical weapons. In short, I change the game so that for me, whether I win or lose is apparently chance-determined, and all I can affect is how stylish the victory is, and then I can go back to playing purely for fun.

You might say that this shows my character is very weak, that I can't stand the pressure or that I fail to rise to a challenge, but I think the opposite is true. My everyday life is quite challenging enough without my supposed leisure and entertainment being a rout as well, and it is in part this coping strategy that helps me to remain stress-free and light-hearted when the real-world going gets tough.

You might also say that it is bad for me because I get driven towards playing the fool when I have opportunities to hone my skills, but, in fact, my competition-shyness is balanced by a strong self-competitiveness. I often play to beat my previous best, and one of the ways I like to twist multi-player games is by working to some arbitrary constraint, like only using a particular silly weapon.

So, I'd like to commend this method of dealing with stiff competition to all the bad losers, cheats, whiners, sufferers of stress, and everyone who takes their games too seriously. And I'd like to hear some suggestions for games which satisfy this property of only being to affect how cool your victory is, so that everyone gets to try out this way of playing games.