Principles
of
Game Design
Notebook
Tariq Bakhtali, G&I-1A
Micah Hrehovcsik
Principles of Game Design
Table of contents
2
Les 01
p. 03
Les 02
p. 04
Les 03
p. 06
Les 04
p. 11
Les 05
p. 14
Les 06
p. 16
Principles of Game Design
Les_01
1.1 Name the different development roles needed to make a videogame
Developer, designer, concept-artist, sound fx, music, director,
New: research-team, level designers, character designer, producer, animator, lead art director, narrative designer, game sound & music, tester.
1.2.1 Define game designer
Een game designer bedenkt en test het basisidee van de game.
1.2.2 What are the attributes/skills/knowledge of a game designer?
Knowledge about how to make a game balanced.
New: Communicative skills, less likely to have narritave design skills.
1.2.3 Name 5 game designers from 5 games you have played
Skyrim
Todd Howard
Alien: Isolation
Gary Napper
Borderlands 2
Paul Hellquist
The Binding of Isaac
Edmund Mcmillen
Rayman
Michael Ancell
1.3.1 Who are credited as the game designers of the following games:
Sim City
Will Wright
Super Mario Bros
Shigeru Miyamoto
Populou
Peter Molyneux
Dungeons & Dragons
Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson
Lord of the Rings (board game)
Reiner Knizia
Magic: The Gathering
Richard Garfield
1.3.2 Name (at least 5) sub-disciplines related to the following game development specializations:
Game Design
Level designer, game writers, play design, content designers, system designers.
Programming
Tool developer, network programmer, graphics programmer, gameplay programmer, engine programmer.
Game Art
3D Modeller, concept artist, character designers, animator, texture designer.
Game Sound & Music
Sound effects, composer, sound director, voice actor, musician.
Other
Game testers, research team, actors, marketing, usability testers.
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Principles of Game Design
Les_02
2.1.1 Define game
A game is a interactive medium for entertainment or educational purpose.
2.1.2 What is the holy grail of game design?
Money.
New: Keep the player entertained for a long period of time.
2.1.3 Why do we play games? What do games add to our lives?
We can experience the things we can’t do in real life.
New: It’s a medium to interact with other people
2.2.1 What would your sentiment be if one of your players died because they played your game too long?
I would be impressed, maybe a bit proud.
New: I would still be impressed, but put a disclaimer or warning to distance myself from the problem.
2.2.2 What would your sentiment be if one of your players kills another player /in real life/ over your game?
I would be apalled.
2.2.3 What would your sentiment be if research showed that the games you were making were harmful?
I would not care.
2.2.4 How would you feel to be threaten by your game’s player?
I would not care, either.
2.3.1 Are these really issues?
Yes, but not mine.
2.3.2 Do you believe videogames are this powerful?
Videogames are a great medium for to tell stories and for interaction with other players, so in an entertaining way
they are powerful. But other then that it just depends on the mental stablity of players.
2.3.3 Find 5 games you think are controversial.
GTA V, Man Hunt, DOA, Saints Row II, South Park: The Stick of Truth.
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Principles of Game Design
2.4 Read & Reflect (Man, play and games & The rules of play & Half real)
Summery:
According to the classic game model, a game is: a rule based formal system, with variable and quantifiable
outcomes, where different outcomes are assigned different values, where the player exerts effort in order to
influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome and the consequences of the activity
are optional and negotiable. But games have changed and the history of video games is partly about breaking
with the classic game model. But the features of the game model doesn’t apply to a certain medium. Games are
a transmedial phenomenon since many different media (or tools) can be used for playing games.
Thereafter, they talk about the study game design. They use a conceptual framework which offers a general
method to understand how games are explored and explained. This framework is devided into three primary
schema’s: Rules, Play and Culture. A schema is a way of organizing and framing knowledge. These schema’s can
help facilitate critical design thinking in any design field.
The next part is explaining the boundries of a game. A game takes place within a frame that communicates
that those who are playing and that space of play is separated from the real world, so this frame draws the line
between the real world and the game world. This frame makes it clear wether or not people are playing a game.
The boundry of a game is also referred as the magic circle: the play-ground or the play-world. The magic circle
gives the players meaning to guide the play of the game.
The last article talks about the freedom that needed to stimulate distraction and fantasy. Such a primary power
of improvisation and joy is allied to the taste for gratuituous difficulty, in order to encompass the various games
to which a civilizing quality can be attributed. In fact, they reflect the moral and intellectual values of a culture, as
well as contribute to their refinement and development. There are different states and structures (with difficult
names) which are defined by different paramaters.
Reflection:
Al the articles combined gave me a good definition of a game and how it works. It was handy to know that the
frameworks or schema’s used to study games can be used in any design field. So if I, as an Interaction Designer,
had to make a website or a app playfull than I just need the right schema for that. Interesting is to see that al
games are actually the same at it’s core, only the mediums are different.
An interresting point that is stated is that games reflect the moral and intellectual values of a culture, as well as
contribute to their refinement and development. I was wondering who is actually acknowledging the moral and
intellectual values of a culture when playing a game. And which culture do they mean? Game studios have a
multicultural team of various religious faiths and beliefs.
The most important part was the magic circle, because the holy grail of game design is to keep the player
entertained as long as possible so that means keeping the player in the magic circle. The funny thing is, is when
the player gets bored he doesn’t necesserily quit but tries to stimulate himself in order to play the game, like
stating other rules for the game. As example, the player can use the command window to alter the mechanics
and make himself jump extremely high, passing the boundries of the game but still in the magic circle.
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Principles of Game Design
Les_03
3.1.1 Write down the rules of the game.
Your gun is a bazooka. Every explosion got a impact radius with force. If you would shoot down, you would get
shot in the air, without damage. The force depends on the distance between the object and blast impact. Rockets
can be found trough the map. When you hits are consecutive you gain rage mode for limited time.
The player has the option the freeze time, to look around and plan it’s next shot.
The enemies are persons with different kind of guns, like assault, rockets launchers, miniguns etc.
If the player is hit by an object he loses a health.
3.2 Make a flow chart of how the game would work.
Player
6
Shoots
Fires bullet
Hit by
object
Loses
health
Bullet
explodes
Impact
with force
Principles of Game Design
3.3 Read & Reflect (Game Design and Architecture & Game Mechanics & Introduction Game Design and
Development)
Summery:
In order to create and sustain the “fun factor” you need to add variety in in order to keep them from becoming
repetitive, use emergence to allow systems to be combined in interesting ways, create interesting systems that
hook players quikly, build addictive systems that will keep players engaged for a long time and advance the
game’s systems so that game difficulty and player interest are kept in balance.
There is no definition of “fun”. Everyones got their own take of what is fun. Figuring out who your audience is,
what they think they want, and what they really want will help in understanding what they might find “fun”.
The job of game designers is not to just come up with new gameplay mechanics but to continually simlify and
refine gameplay mechanics to make them easier for players to use. Game designers must also try to figure out
how these mechanics can be combined and what additional gameplay will be created through these combinations.
Emergent mechanics are either predefined by the game designer or may result from smart players figuring out
ways of utilizing mechanics together in a unique way.
The pieces of a system are objects. These can represent just about anything. Objects can be described by their
attributes - the properties that determine what they are - and behaviors - the things that they do. Relationships
are used to describe the ways in which their behavior and influence will change as context within the system
change. Once you understand the requirements - the things your system must accomplish - list the objects
that will make up the system.
Since its difficult to make assumptions about the behavior of a system over time a variety of tools allows us to
simulate system structure and behavior.
Reflection:
The whole thing seemed pretty logical. These articles gave more of a in-depth explanation then new information,
like with the part about core mechanics. It seems logical to me that when you think of core mechanics that they
can be used in various ways, not al of them of coure, other wise the are not that important. It’s more convenient
for both player and designer to have mechanics that can be re-used. For the player the action clearity stays high
and the designer creates some new results or emergence mechanics.
The most important part for me was the plan of creating a system, because for the designers the action clarity
stays high and the designers know what to communicate with the other development roles. This plan of creating
a system seems to me it can be applied in other things then video games.
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Principles of Game Design
3.4 Analyze games
Sim City 2000
Core mechanics
One of the core mechanics is deciding and optimizing your city to get a steady economy and make it grow.
Progressive mechanics
There are tactical ways to build the best city. The player is challanged to find the best way or else his city will fall.
The player has control over the economy, layout and happiness.
More than one game embedded?
No.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior beteen player
No, since it is a single-player game, but sure player can talk about the game.
Skyrim
Core mechanics
Explore and engage with a wondrous, mystical world.
Progressive mechanics
Being part of a journey that is beyond our own world. Feeling of ownership over one’s journey. Drive to see what
will happen and explore to satisfy one’s curiosity.
More than one game embedded?
I would say yes, since you can hack-and-slash or play it in stealth or you can hunt etc.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior beteen player
No, since it is a single-player game, but sure player can talk about the game.
TotalWar: Shogun 2
Core mechanics
You get a strategic map view, where you build your army, manage your empires economy, organize your generals,
engage in deplomacy with other countries. Two enemy armies can engage in combat.
Progressive mechanics
The player has the control over huge armies. More than one game embedded?
You can build a strong army and a steady society.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior beteen player
There is a the option for multiplayer co-operative campaign mode. Now you can split control over armies in
battle. There is even drop-in-battle, where your battle is played as the opponent in someones single player battle.
You can play with a friend or talk about how great or bad your clan is doing or how great that particular war was.
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Principles of Game Design
Monopoly
Core mechanics
One player is the bank, every player has a token and starts with a fixed amount of money. Every turn each player
roll the dice. When landed on property the player can buy the property. When you own property you can collect
rent. Every time the players passes start he or she recieves money.
Progressive mechanics
You have to become the wealthiest player of the game and bankrupt the rest of the players. It is a competitive
game.
More than one game embedded?
No.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior beteen player
Because it is a competitive game, you are constantly trying to bankrupt the rest of the players.
Go
Core mechanics
There are essentially two rules in Go:
Rule_1: Every stone remaining on the board must have at least one open “point”.
Rule_2: The stones on the board must never repeat a previous position of stones.
Progressive mechanics
The parts you need to surround get larger and larger, so it gets harder to win.
More than one game embedded?
No.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior beteen player
It is a competitive game.
Battlestar Galactica
Core mechanics
Each player is secretly assigned a team at the start of the game. The two teams are the humans and the Cylons,
and each team has a specific objective. The human players are trying to find the map to Earth, while the Cylon
players simply want to annihilate the human race.
Progressive mechanics
Players win or lose with the other members of their team, but must figure out who they can trust in order to lead
their team to victory.
More than one game embedded?
You have to know who is on your team and handle the ship.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior beteen player
Player must figure out who to trust through interacting with other players.
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Principles of Game Design
Volley Ball
Core mechanics
There are two teams of six on either sites of the net. During each possession on one side of the net, a team
can only have three contacts between hands and ball. The goal is to smash the ball on the floor of the other
team.
Progressive mechanics
A great deal of strategy and teamwork go into playing the game.
More than one game embedded?
No.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior between player
It’s a team sport so obviously there will be a lot of social behavior between the player.
Curling
Core mechanics
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice towards a target area which is segmented into
four concentric circles. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones,
also called rocks, across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team
has eight stones. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game; points are scored for the stones
resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams
have thrown all of their stones. A game usually consists of eight or ten ends.
Progressive mechanics
The curler can induce a curved path by causing the stone to slowly turn as it slides, and the path of the rock may
be further influenced by two sweepers with brooms who accompany it as it slides down the sheet, using the
brooms to alter the state of the ice in front of the stone. A great deal of strategy and teamwork go into choosing
the ideal path and placement of a stone for each situation, and the skills of the curlers determine how close to
the desired result the stone will achieve. This gives curling its nickname of “chess on ice”.
More than one game embedded?
No.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior beteen player
A great deal of strategy and teamwork go into choosing the ideal path and placement of a stone for each
situation, and the skills of the curlers determine how close to the desired result the stone will achieve.
Golf
Core mechanics
Golf is a club and ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in
as few strokes as possible.
Progressive mechanics
It takes time and practice to become better in the game and sometimes you need to hit the ball a couple more
times to get it in the hole.
More than one game embedded?
No.
Game mechanics that govern social behavior beteen player
The game can be played with friends in a competitive way or in a non-competitive way.
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Principles of Game Design
Les_04
4.1 What were the controller scheme for the original Super Mario Brothers?
LEFT = walk left
RIGHT = walk right
DOWN = duck/go down in a vine
UP = go up in a vine
A = jump
B = running/pick up shell/throw fireball
New: The longer you hold A, the longer you jump.
4.2 Choice, goal and action
4.2.1 Space Invaders
QUALITY
FREQUENCY
CLARITY
CHOICE
Low
High
High
GOAL
Low
Low
High
ACTION
Low
High
High
CHOICE
Low
High
High
GOAL
High
Low
High
ACTION
Low
High
High
CHOICE
Low/Medium
High
Medium
GOAL
High
Medium
Medium
ACTION
High
High
Medium
4.3 Astroids
QUALITY
FREQUENCY
CLARITY
4.4 God of War
QUALITY
FREQUENCY
CLARITY
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Principles of Game Design
4.5 Play Super Mario Bros with a kinect.
The player can use his middelfinger and indexfinger of his left hand to move the player. He can use his right hand
to grab stuff and shoot stuff.
4.6 Play Astroid with a Wii motion controller.
The player points the Wii motion controller at the screen. Use B to shoot and rotate your wrist left or right to
move your thing or use the arrow keys to move or aim left and right to move.
4.7 Play Astroid with a smartphone.
Use your left thumb to move the shooter by dragging your finger accros the screen or tilte the smartphone
sideways and use your right thumb to shoot by tapping the screen. The game can’t be played on it’s side.
4.8 Questionnaire for play-testing (9 questions)
1. What was your first impression of the game? Why?
2. What were your options while playing the game?
3. Can you explain to me what the goal(s) was(were)?
4. Can you tell me what kind of actions you could do?
5. Did you fellt restricted while playing the game? Why?
6. What did you like about the game and what not?
7. Are there things you missed? Why?
8. How difficult was the game for you?
9. Do you have some feedback you would like to give?
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Principles of Game Design
Les_05
5.1.1 What was the first game you ever played?
Hide and seek
5.1.2 What was your favorite game as a child (6-12)?
Splinter Cell
5.1.3 What was your favorite game as a teenager (12-19)?
Skyrim
5.1.4 What is your favorite game now? What kinds of words would you use to describe your game-play
experience?
My favorite game is Counter Strike GO. I would describe the game-play as tactical.
5.1.5 What do you thinks is everyone’s favorite game genre?
RPG
5.2.1 What abilities are challenged in the following activities?
Chess Sight, memory.
Poker Sight, bluff skills.
Dungeons & Dragons imagination, being social.
Football Skill, motorics, sight, inzicht, stamina, memory
Reading a book sight or ears, vocabulary, imagination.
Watching a movie sight and ears.
5.2.2 List the emotions experienced playing video games and the games that caused this emotion.
Pressure, anxiety, relief, empowerment and joy.
5.3.1 Choose a game you played for many hours. What did the game have?
Skyrim, it had everything.
Anticipation
Surprise
Pleasure
Understanding
Mastery
Composure
Empowerment
5.3.2 Choose a game you stopped playing after a short while. What did the game miss?
Fallout 4, no anticipation.
Anticipation
Surprise
Pleasure
Understanding
Mastery
Composure
Empowerment
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Principles of Game Design
5.4.1 Think up a game concept that will be your classmates’ next favorite game. Tell us about the following:
What is the core? What is the progression? What is the game-play experience?
Core mechanics
It’s a arena type multiplayer game. Your gun is a bazooka. Every explosion got a impact radius with force. If you
would shoot down, you would get shot in the air, without damage. The force depends on the distance between
the object and blast impact. Rockets can be found trough the map. When you hits are consecutive you gain rage
mode for limited time. In rage mode the blast radius is increased.
The enemies are persons with different kind of guns, like assault, rockets launchers, miniguns etc.
If the player is hit by an object he loses a health.
Progression
It is a competitave game. The player is striving to be the best by mastering the game. You need to time and
coordinate your shots and dodge other bullets in order to be the best.
Game-play experience
The player needs to feel like a badass and that he is mastering the game. Since it’s multiplayer the every match
will feel different.
5.4.2 Feedback game concept pitch with 3 other students. Would it be their next favorite game? Why would
the play your game or not? What aspect of the concept do they like?
Ilse Bigler
Would it be your next favorite game?
Nee
Why would you play the game or not?
I suck at shooters and multiplayer is not my favorite
What aspect of the came do you like?
The game mechanics seem interesting
Hisham Bendris
Would it be your next favorite game?
Ik zou het niet spelen want het klinkt als een soort buggy tf2
Why would you play the game or not?
Het klink als een soort buggy tf2. Ik zie het niet als een succesvol competitive spel.
What aspect of the came do you like?
Als dit een single player spel is met een coole story mode dan klinkt het wel aantrekkelijk.
Bastiaan Burghardt
Would it be your next favorite game?
Denk het niet, maar klinkt opzich wel intessant. Ik zal het wel spelen.
Why would you play the game or not?
Yes, I would play this game but not a very long time.
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What aspect of the came do you like?
That your main weapon is a bazooka
Principles of Game Design
Les_06
6.1.1 What is your game design process? (draw a diagram)
If I had an idea I would do research to make sure it is new/fresh, make a sketch/prototype and pitch it to people.
When my idea is clear and solid I would start with designing, developing, testing etc.
New: Think of mechanics, build a level around that mechanic and test that mechanic. Look at other games.
The game design concept process ends when you got a core mechanic, progressive mechanic and playexperience.
6.1.1.1Are there phases? Is it a cycle?
You got the phases of research and design, develop, test, which work in a cycle.
New: Elaboration: paper prototyping, connecting the dots. Tuning: problem solving phase. Iteration:
Ideation: coming up with ideas.
Creation: Paper prototype.
Evaluate: Pitch.
The end is when you got out of time. 6.1.1.2 How do you begin? When does it end?
Start communicating the idea to people with a prototype.
New: It begins with a concept phase and ends with the tuning phase. Start with a kick-off so that everyones is on the team.
6.1.2 Are there different kinds of game design processes? How do they differ?
There is a difference in processes between serious games and entertainment games.
New: If you are a bonafied game designer you can use visionary design. An other way is cabal design: use
your team, gather their ideas. The game designer connects the ideas. Cabal: use your players for ideas.
Iterative design: use paramaters.
6.1.3 Is there a difference between the game design process and the game development process? And
how are they different?
Game designers think of ways of how to make the game entertaining. Game developers just have to make the
game work.
New: No, game designers also have to fix bugs after release.
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Principles of Game Design
6.2 Read & Reflect(The Cabal:Valve’s Design Process For Creating Half-Life & Game Design and
Architecture & Game Design Workshop & Evolutionary Design)
Summery:
Large games must be designed and constructed in an iterative process, with repeated playtesting and tuning,
and occasional modifications to the design, throughout development. The process is divided into three major
parts: the concept stage, elaboration stage and tuning stage. It is optional to involve the player in the design
process.
In the concept stage it’s about finding a game concept, the player’s role, an audience and the key to fulfill
your player’s dream. After the brainstorming it is advised to construct a playable version of your game and
play and perfect this model with friends. This way, the game designer receives instant feedback and come to
understand te core game structures.
In the elaboration stage it’s about defining the primary gameplay mode, designing the protagonist, defining
the game world, designing the core mechanics, creating additional modes, designing levels, writing the story,
built, test and iterate.
If the game is not thoroughly prototyped or tested early on in the process, many of the flaws come out later
- in some cases, too late to fix. To prevent this you can use Iterative design: design, test and evaluate the
results over and over again throughout the development of your game. It’s difficult to design an original game
if you skip the physical prototyping process. Designing a game is not thinking up a storyline but about what
the player does and sees while playing your idea. If you can crack that, then that game’s design stands a much
higher chance of being a hit.
Cabal process
The pre-cabal process starts with a playable single prototype level. Only fun things and variations of those
things are being implemented. Software features are simplified until it was something that could be written in a
few days. The second step in the pre-cabal process is to analyse what is fun about the prototype level.
Next up is creating a group by combining the strengths of a cross section of people with different skills. This
group is called the “Cabal.” The goal of this group is to create a complete document that detailed all the levels
and described major monster interactions, special effects, plot devices and design standards and to work out
when and how every monster, weapon, and NPC was to be introduced, what skills the player has, and how we
were going to teach them those skills.
Cabal meetings are semi-structured brainstorming sessions usually dedicated to a specific area of the game. It
is important to have at least five or six people in each meeting so that the meetings wouldn’t stall out from lack
of input. The resulting designs had a consistent level of polish and depth that hadn’t been seen before. Having
a professional writer on staff is key to this process.
Almost every level in the game will be touched by everyone. If a play-test session revealed something
that needed to be changed, any available level designer could make the changes without the game getting
bottlenecked by needing any specific individual. By its very nature, the Cabal process avoided most of the
personal conflicts inherent in other more hierarchical organizations.
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Principles of Game Design
Evolutionary Design
The process consist of five steps: create rules, play through the rules, observe how players react to rules,
identify problem areas with rules, return to step one in order to create new rules that address the problems.
Good design can be created through an inherently iterative process.
Few to none can predict how a complex system will behave when you make changes to it’s rule set. Due to
intricate emergent behavior of the system a carefully disigned rule change can brake the game.
Step 1: Focus on fundamental activity. The benefits to this design strategy are: ease of learning, focuses game
balancing and provides a solid foundation for additional rules.
Step 2: Play the game. Let other people play the game and then observe them and play the game yourself.
Step 3: Observe the game to collect data about player reactions to game play.
Step 4: Identify problems with the game through asking the right questions about that data. There are two things
that explain why people act the way they do when playing a game: economics and psychology. The amount of
psychological pleasure is depends on economics, player investment and social respons. You need a sort of time
schema with rewards.
Game setting is used to ease the player into the game system. Game setting is not game design.
Step 5: Create new rules.
Reflection:
Reading these segments was very enjoyable. I liked that they were told from experience rather than observations
and studies, it felt more personal.
Now let’s talk about the content. These segments were talking about different ways of designing games. The
one thing and most important thing that I read was: prototype and test your ideas and designs throughout the
whole development process. This is key to succes and it seems to me the most logical thing to do, since that is
the way to know if your game is “fun”. Although they mentioned that a couple of the big studio’s are doing the
tests last moment, I wonder which.
Other then that, the segments provided useful frameworks for the design process to work with. The design
process that I liked most was the Cabal process. It sounded great that everyone has a touch in the process within
a hierarchical organization. They create a central point of creation and occasionally step out of it to test and
ellaborate. Instead of an idea developed by a designer and then passed on to the developer, there is in advance
collectively brainstormed by a designer and developer what a good design would be. It sounds like it could save
time.
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