Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, war games, or simulation games.In Elements of Game Design, game designer Robert Zubek defines game design by breaking it down into three elements:
Game mechanics and systems, which are the rules and objects in the game. Gameplay, which is the interaction between the player and the mechanics and systems. In Chris Crawford on Game Design, the author summarizes gameplay as "what the player does". Player experience, which is how users feel when they are playing the game.
In academic research, game design falls within the field of game studies (not to be confused with game theory, which studies strategic decision making, primarily in non-game situations).
Process of design Game design is part of a game's development from concept to final form. Typically, the development process is iterative, with repeated phases of testing and revision. During revision, additional design or re-design may be needed.
Development team
Game designer A game designer (or inventor) is a person who invents a game's concept, central mechanisms, rules, and themes. Game designers may work alone or in teams.
Game developer A game developer is a person who fleshes out the details of a game's design, oversees its testing, and revises the game in response to player feedback.
Often game designers also do development work on the same project. However, some publishers commission extensive development of games to suit their target audience after licensing a game from a designer. For larger games, such as collectible card games, designers and developers work in teams with separate roles.
Game artist A game artist creates visual art for games. Game artists are often vital to role-playing games and collectible card games.Exhibitions: The Art of Video Games – Accessed 17 November 2012.
Many graphic elements of games are created by the designer when producing a prototype of the game, revised by the developer based on testing, and then further refined by the artist and combined with artwork as a game is prepared for publication or release.
Concept A game concept is an idea for a game, briefly describing its core play mechanisms, objectives, themes, and who the players represent.
A game concept may be pitched to a game publisher in a similar manner as film ideas are pitched to potential film producers. Alternatively, game publishers holding a game license to intellectual property in other media may solicit game concepts from several designers before picking one to design a game.
Design During design, a game concept is fleshed out. Mechanisms are specified in terms of components (boards, cards, tokens, etc.) and rules. The play sequence and possible player actions are defined, as well as how the game starts, ends, and win conditions (if any).
Prototypes and play testing A game prototype is a draft version of a game used for testing. Uses of prototyping include exploring new game design possibilities and technologies.
Play testing is a major part of game development. During testing, players play the prototype and provide feedback on its gameplay, the usability of its components, the clarity of its goals and rules, ease of learning, and entertainment value. During testing, various balance issues may be identified, requiring changes to the game's design. The developer then revises the design, components, presentation, and rules before testing it again. Later testing may take place with focus groups to test consumer reactions before publication.
History Folk process Many games have ancient origins and were not designed in the modern sense, but gradually evolved over time through play. The rules of these games were not codified until early modern times and their features gradually developed and changed through the folk process. For example, sports (see history of sports), gambling, and board games are known, respectively, to have existed for at least nine thousand, six thousand, and four thousand years. Tabletop games played today whose descent can be traced from ancient times include chess,Andreas Bock-Raming, The Gaming Board in Indian Chess and Related Board Games: a terminological investigation, Board Games Studies 2, 1999 go, pachisi, mancala, and pick-up sticks. These games are not considered to have had a designer or been the result of a contemporary design process.
After the rise of commercial game publishing in the late 19th century, many games that had formerly evolved via folk processes became commercial properties, often with custom scoring pads or preprepared material. For example, the similar public domain games Generala, Yacht, and Yatzy led to the commercial game Yahtzee in the mid-1950s.Wood, Clement and Goddard, Gloria, The Complete Book of Games, Halcyon House, NY, 1938
Today, many commercial games, such as Taboo, Balderdash, Pictionary, or Time's Up!, are descended from traditional parlour games. Adapting traditional games to become commercial properties is an example of game design. Similarly, many sports, such as soccer and baseball, are the result of folk processes, while others were designed, such as basketball, invented in 1891 by James Naismith.
New media The first games in a new medium are frequently adaptations of older games. Later games often exploit the distinctive properties of a new medium. Adapting older games and creating original games for new media are both examples of game design.
Technological advances have provided new media for games throughout history. For example, accurate topographic maps produced as lithographs and provided free to Prussian officers helped popularize wargaming. Cheap bookbinding (printed labels wrapped around cardboard) led to mass-produced board games with custom boards. Inexpensive (hollow) lead figurine casting contributed to the development of miniature wargaming. Cheap custom dice led to poker dice. Flying discs led to Ultimate frisbee. Purposes Games can be designed for entertainment, education, exercise or experimental purposes. Additionally, elements and principles of game design can be applied to other interactions, in the form of gamification. Games have historically inspired seminal research in the fields of probability, artificial intelligence, economics, and optimization theory. Applying game design to itself is a current research topic in metadesign.
Educational purposes
By learning through play children can develop social and cognitive skills, mature emotionally, and gain the self-confidence required to engage in new experiences and environments.Human growth and the development of personality, Jack Kahn, Susan Elinor Wright, Pergamon Press, Key ways that young children learn include playing, being with other people, being active, exploring and new experiences, talking to themselves, communicating with others, meeting physical and mental challenges, being shown how to do new things, practicing and repeating skills, and having fun.Learning, playing, and interacting. Good practice in the early years foundation stage. Page 9
Play develops children's content knowledge and provides children the opportunity to develop social skills, competencies, and disposition to learn.Wood, E. and J. Attfield. (2005). Play, learning, and the early childhood curriculum. 2nd ed. London: Paul Chapman Play-based learning is based on a Vygotskian model of scaffolding where the teacher pays attention to specific elements of the play activity and provides encouragement and feedback on children's learning.Martlew, J., Stephen, C. & Ellis, J. (2011). Play in the primary school classroom? The experience of teachers supporting children's learning through a new pedagogy. Early Years, 31(1), 71–83. When children engage in real-life and imaginary activities, play can be challenging in children's thinking.Whitebread, D., Coltman, P., Jameson, H. & Lander, R. (2009). Play, cognition, and self-regulation: What exactly are children learning when they learn through play? Educational & Child Psychology, 26(2), 40–52. To extend the learning process, sensitive intervention can be provided with adult support when necessary during play-based learning.
Design issues by game type Different types of games pose specific game design issues.
Board games Board game design is the development of rules and presentational aspects of a board game. When a player takes part in a game, it is the player's self-subjection to the rules that create a sense of purpose for the duration of the game.Neyfakh, Leon. "Quest for fun; Sometimes the most addictive new technology comes in a simple cardboard box". Boston Globe. 11 March 2012 Maintaining the players' interest throughout the gameplay experience is the goal of board game design.Wadley, Carma. "Rules of the game: Do you have what it takes to invent the next 'Monopoly'?" Deseret News. 18 November 2008. To achieve this, board game designers emphasize different aspects such as social interaction, strategy, and competition, and target players of differing needs by providing for short versus long-play, and luck versus skill. Beyond this, board game design reflects the culture in which the board game is produced.
The most ancient board games known today are over 5000 years old. They are frequently abstract in character and their design is primarily focused on a core set of simple rules. Of those that are still played today, games like go (), mancala (), and chess () have gone through many presentational and/or rule variations. In the case of chess, for example, new variants are developed constantly, to focus on certain aspects of the game, or just for variation's sake.
Traditional board games date from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Whereas ancient board game design was primarily focused on rules alone, traditional board games were often influenced by Victorian mores. Academic (e.g. history and geography) and moral didacticism were important design features for traditional games, and Puritan associations between dice and the Devil meant that early American game designers eschewed their use in board games entirely.Johnson, Bruce E. "Board games: affordable and abundant, boxed amusements from the 1930s and '40s recall the cultural climate of an era." Country Living. 1 December 1997. Even traditional games that did use dice, like Monopoly (based on the 1906 The Landlord's Game), were rooted in educational efforts to explain political concepts to the masses. By the 1930s and 1940s, board game design began to emphasize amusement over education, and characters from comic strips, radio programmes, and (in the 1950s) television shows began to be featured in board game adaptations.
Recent developments in modern board game design can be traced to the 1980s in Germany, and have led to the increased popularity of "German-style board games" (also known as "Eurogames" or "designer games"). The design emphasis of these board games is to give players meaningful choices. This is manifested by eliminating elements like randomness and luck to be replaced by skill, strategy, and resource competition, by removing the potential for players to fall irreversibly behind in the early stages of a game, and by reducing the number of rules and possible player options to produce what Alan R. Moon has described as "elegant game design". The concept of elegant game design has been identified by The Boston Globe'''s Leon Neyfakh as related to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's the concept of "flow" from his 1990 book, "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience".