[bloat]

The Inform Designer's Manual is mostly about Inform 6 programming, but has a lot of material on game design.

https://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/DM4.pdf

Crimes Against Mimesis was a famous tract in its day. I don't know how things have moved on since then.

https://www.rickandviv.net/index.php/2004/08/18/crimes-again...