Since Christmas, I've been playing with my Delonghi coffee-grinder. Coffee beans sit in the top compartment, and I adjust knobs to determine the coarseness of the grind and the amount of coffee to let through.

That wasn't enough control for me, though, so I spent a gift voucher on an AeroPress. It's a simple tool that looks like a cross between a drip filter and a syringe. Because the process is quicker than with my cafetiere, it allows me finer control over the resultant cup of Good Morning, America.

Once, while waiting for a kettle to boil, I realised that the game in my hand was poking me in the same part of my brain.

It took a while to find a game-coffee image that wasn't obscene.

Game Dev Story is a simple, addictive strategy game in which you run a game development studio. You choose genres and themes, then direct your staff's focus toward game world, accessibility, polish, etc. Finding the correct combinations is the key to making money and critically-acclaimed games. After a few years of success, you'll have more money to spend on better staff, different games, and even your own console.

It's easy to reduce Game Dev Story to a system of menus that, when manipulated correctly, pour out points. Indeed, I reached a point when Death Spy's OmegaBox dominated the console market, and each of the five games we developed each year floated atop the charts until the next came out.

But manipulating variables to score points is only half of Game Dev Story -- the other half is self-expression. In this Monday's Mobcast, the crew spent five minutes laughing about their combinations and titles. The fun part isn't being financially secure -- it's taking risks and making games you wish existed.

Countless other games are fun beyond the sum of their ingredients for exactly the same reason. Civilization, for example, encourages you to learn systems for victory, but lets you choose which type of victory and how to get there. Fallout 3 can be won in many different ways, often while dressing your companions in silly outfits. And most succesfully, World of Warcraft is as much about dressing up and equipping your avatar as it is about hitting orcs.

Sure, one recipe is always going to be a success, but I enjoyed making my personal cup of coffee: Americano, black as the sky on a moonless night, very strong, no sugar.