A degree of randomness in game design, not only in enemy behaviours and artificial intelligence but also in terms of the arrangement of certain elements, can't be a bad thing. But it's not quite as simple and pat as that; injecting randomness into a winnable game creates a number of practical problems, most of which revolve around that cornerstone of player advocacy and thus game design, fairness.

Imagine, for example, a randomly-generated block puzzle. What are the chances that that puzzle will have an actual solution? For that matter, if the random arrangement of blocks and hazards did produce a puzzle with a solution, what are the chances that that would be the only solution? The special pleasures of block puzzle games-- which depend on each puzzle having one single frustrating