Abstract
This work covers the fundamental skills required to get started as a Game Designer and explains how to translate them into something that the team can use.
This is done by defining a thought process that will allow thinking about a project from a Game Designers’ point of view while showcasing how this translates to real-world examples.
Furthermore, will this work cover a more detailed explanation of how Game Design Documentation can be set up and what advantages it offers for a project.
Subject descriptions:
Design; System Design; Game Design; Documentation;
General Terms:
Game; Design; Theory; Documentation;
Keywords:
Game Design; Machinations; Development Tools; Design Documentation;
Publication Date:
Continuous project since 2021
Introduction
This work focuses on establishing a general understanding of Game Design and how it can be used to create a better understanding of a project allowing a team to create specific tasks to act upon. This has the underlining purpose to ensure that the project created is the project the team intends to create. For this purpose will this work address many elements without mentioning all possible variations of it and instead focuses on the ones I’ve considered most useful for game development.
The topics of this work have the objective to:
- Build up a general Game Design mind-set
- Make Game Design work useful to the team
- Offer a how-to for Game Design Documentation
General Design mind-set
The main task of a Designer is to find the problems of a product. This covers finding what actually causes the problems the team is currently aware of and predicting potential future issues that will occur later in development. The designers’ job is to investigate these problems and either resolve them or direct the project to avoid them.
To resolve current problems a designer tries to determine the product needs and what is actually causing problems. This will result in information that can be acted on.
High-level questions:
- What is the exact problem?
- Who are the users?
- What is the context of use?
- What is the current state of implementation?
- For existing examples of good/bad design in this space, why do they work/fail?
More detailed questions specific to the problem (A door for this example):
- How do users unconsciously expect different types of handles/knobs to behave?
- Should exterior doors be required to open outwards?
- Should the same type of handle be used on both the outside and inside of the door?
- Could these expectations change based on culture or region
Additional reading
Books
Donald Norman. 2013. The DESIGN of EVERYDAY THINGS
Jesse Schell. 2015. The Art of Game Design A Book of Lenses
Murray Silverstein, Christopher Alexander. 1977. A Pattern Language
Ernest Adams, Joris Dormans. 2012. Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design
Other
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxXZB5v0Tn6FaMwAqRVoHJeP17f–SaIpx
https://www.gdcvault.com/
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016458/Machinations–A–New–Way–to
http://www.goodgamesbydesign.com/Files/FlowSpace_CMurphy_2016.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKBPwuu3eCYkScmqpD9xE7UZsszweVO0n
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz3–p2q6vFYX5Ozz9N–vLzDANSQIyLSWx
