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The Design Process Designing a Game

Discover the step-by-step game design process, from defining the problem to implementing and refining your ideas. Learn about brainstorming, creating a design proposal, prototyping, evaluating, and refining your game design.

jeffreytaylor
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The Design Process Designing a Game

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  1. The Design Process Designing a Game

  2. What is Your game Design • When you are designing a game, you are designing a complex system, so you will want a series of steps called a process to help you build up and improve upon ideas as you create and improve the product.

  3. Design Process • Define the Problem clearly • Collect Data(Identify criteria and constraints.) • Brainstorm (What’s already out there?) • Develop a design proposal(Includes sketches, materials, time frame, cost estimation, etc.) • Make a prototype or implement solution • Test /Evaluate(Problem solved?) • Modify/Refine

  4. Game Design Process • CAPTURE • Define the problem • Collect data • Research a wide variety of fields: art, rhetoric, marketing, mythology, music, psychology, sociology, technology and anything else that will help create an innovative game. • It’s important to identify the mechanics and how they balance with each other and connect to the theme and how it motivates the player. • Creating a game isn’t just playing games; it’s studying them.

  5. Having a designer’s Journal • It’s important to have a journal to write down all the research and information you find. • Drawings and other sketches can be put in your journal. • This is how designers and developers communicate with each other.

  6. Brainstorm • What is already out there? • This is the stage where you take all the research information and use them in new creative ways. • During this stage start introducing limits and constraints because games do have limits. • Space, time, money, technology or culture • It isn’t about letting your mind run free.

  7. Design proposal • Develop a proposal about your ideas. • Includes: • MLA Style • Sketches • Materials, • Technology • Time frame • Money • Other resources

  8. Prototype • Make a sample of the game; or solution • Good ideas come from brainstorming • Make a rough type of game to see how and if it will work. • Won’t be the best version of the game. • If you’re making a video game and you can’t code, you can still make a game. • Make a paper prototype by using dice or cards. • Make a “rapid” prototype.

  9. Evaluate and Test stage • Playtest • You’ve made the prototype of your game, now it must be tested. • Play it yourself. • Invite friends to play it. Watch them play the game. • The prototype is tested • Did it work • What was good? • What was bad?

  10. Modify/Refine • In gaming is know as iterate • Use feedback, data and testing to make the product better. • What can be changed? How can it be changed? • Refine the work, modify it by making needed changes. • Playtest again. • And then iterate again. • And then back to the prototype state where you will make changes.

  11. And…. The process continues • And, eventually you will focus on one prototype • And you will keep iterating on it • And eventually make a wireframe. • Visual guide. A blueprint. • First playable demo • Has gameplay and assets. The first playable gameplay with elements. • And do an “alpha build” • And a beta build

  12. Building a game Alpha build Beta build • Phase of the release to begin software testing • Developers test the software using “white-box techniques” • Ends with a feature freeze (no more added) • Follows alpha • Also called betaware • Game is completed but will contain some bugs.

  13. Implement stage • After going through the iterative cycle enough times, a game is ready. • Take the game and release it to a wider audience to experience. • Think target market.

  14. Target Consumer – A group, in which a product is designed for. • Design Process– A systematic problem-solving strategy. • Developers Journal– A notebook used to record the evolution of a product. • It is sometimes used to prove who developed the idea with patent law suits. Words of the Day

  15. Rules for Brainstorming • No criticism allowed!! • Work for idea quantity, develop as many as possible. • Everyone contributes.

  16. What are some team-working skills? - Dependable (Will you do your portion and correctly?) - Collaboration (Work well with others? Control freak?) - Task allocation (Do you evenly distribute the work?) - Conflict resolution (Will you talk/listen to work it out?) - Communication (Do you listen/speak effectively?)

  17. Design Criteria Designing normally requires consideration for: • Function (what’s its purpose, what does the design require) • Cost (should I reconsider the materials to reduce cost) • Aesthetics (appearance, does it look nice) • Material (what will it be made of, what’s appropriate) • Shape (does it have to be a certain height or size)

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