Issue #295 has an interesting interview with Patrice Désilets. The Leap of Faith move from Assassin's Creed was a design solution to the problem of it being boring to descend a tower you've just spent time climbing.
He also talks a little bit about the pressure of being a successful game designer moving to another studio and being expected to produce inspired mechanics on demand.
He also points out that a conventional game designer needs to be able to sell their ideas to programmers if they actually want to be able to see them produced.
He also invented Prince of Persia's rewind mechanic which if that is the original source of the idea is quite interesting.