HIDDEN INFORMATION
Game state deliberately concealed from some or all players — face-down cards, fog of war, unidentified items, hidden roles — making inference and risk management core skills.
- SOLO-DEV COST MEDIUM
- TIMING REAL-TIME / TURN
- COMMON IN STRATEGY · CARD-GAME · ROGUELIKE · COMPETITIVE
Poker is the ur-example; StarCraft's fog makes scouting an economy of its own; social deduction games (Among Us, Werewolf) are hidden information as the entire game; and roguelikes hide item identities so drinking the unknown potion is a calculated gamble. Designers hide information because perfect-information games are calculation contests, while hidden information creates judgment: players act on beliefs, which enables bluffing, scouting, deception, and the distinctive thrill of a read paying off. It also flattens skill cliffs in some designs (the better player can't calculate their way through your face-down card) while deepening skill in others (probability discipline separates poker players). Key decisions: what's hidden from whom (symmetric fog versus asymmetric roles), how information leaks — every good hidden-info design has controlled reveals (scouting, tells, partial identification) so deduction is possible, and how much randomness backs the hiding (a shuffled deck versus a chosen secret are different psychologies). Pitfall: hidden information without inference channels — if there is no way to reason about what's concealed, hiding it adds no decision, just blindness; the concealment only earns its place when players can get partial knowledge and act on it.