Game Design
Play is a time tested method for knowledge transfer and problem solving. Play encourages creative thinking because it invites consequence light failure. Games not only use play to encourage competition and cooperation (both are integrity and trust building devices), but games also use play to encourage skill acquisition. Research shows that games that succeed excel in promoting competence, autonomy and relatedness through immediacy, density and consistency. In my experience, games tighten attentional focus, whereas art loosens the attentional aperture.
Given the massive market that video games have become, now greater than music, movies and sports combined, it is crucial to understand the lessons and methods of game design for those imagining art and entertainment in virtual spaces. Game design is critical for understanding how and why people move through a virtual space regardless of whether the experience is meant to be an interactive game or a more passive experience. Far too often I have seen virtual spaces that are cool tech demos but don’t seem to have any purposeful concern that engages the target audience. Not every virtual experience needs to feel like a game; however the audience should feel purpose empowered by at least some sense of sustainable “easy fun.” What is the goal of being in the space for the audience? Why is it rewarding to be there?
Fortunately it is relatively easy to “paper prototype” games and game-like experiences to test whether the intention of the experience lands with audiences. Building on successful paper prototypes means that the expensive process of actually building in a game engine is relatively predictable, much like writing a song before committing it to full music production or writing a script prior to shooting a film.
I recently completed the ELVTR course, Game Design with Rob Gallerani (Destiny2, Diablo Resurrected/IV, Skylanders). This course really helped to connect my studies in decision making and cognitive biases with game design. Rob was a superb mentor and I strongly recommend this course for anyone who might be interested in the game design discipline. The course covered inception of game, pitching and creating with stakeholders, consumers and the development team in mind. Further, the course elucidated the process of using game mechanics to create a dynamic player environment that elicits an aesthetic feel for players.
For this course, I designed a silly turn-based board game called Pickets and Poo. Pickets and Poo is a farm themed game with the strategic goal of dominating the board by planting as many sunflowers as possible while defending resources and attacking opponents with cow poo. Pickets and Poo was prototyped on a dry erase board and was then translated to Table Top Simulator on Steam. Ultimately, Pickets and Poo may be developed for mobile; Game Design Document available on demand. I really love the process of game design; like so many other creative processes, it’s a bit like turning a combo lock until you find the right numbers. Then it’s a refining process.
The future of traditional passive art and entertainment is visceral narrative building in the virtual space of imagination. I see music production, CASSM oriented narrative and game design to be the three pillars that map how we might experience the expansive virtual world that is opening before us.
In 2022, I took a course in Developing Video Game Narratives at UCLA with Jon Callan. The course focused on branched storytelling, including “string of pearls” methodology, using programs such as Twine and Ren’Py. I think that this discipline is still finding its feet when compared to traditional storytelling such as in books, movies and music. Because video games are so exteroceptively focused, it’s a challenge to create stories in games that carry deep resonance. However, as “Artificial Intelligence” progresses, it is likely that storytelling will connect more deeply, having a personal, nuanced sonority for the “player” without requiring development teams to have to worry about infinitely enumerated outcomes.
Agency is a critical part of humans’ sense of self-esteem and security. Immersive worlds present spaces where one’s sense of agency can be viscerally challenged but also amplified. In virtual spaces, the environment, or the texture of proximity, can communicate meaning without text. I expect to see real innovation in this discipline as AI and visual fidelity continue to accelerate.
Furthermore, art carries intention so it is important, in a user agency driven environment, to maintain the force of creative intention. Art is visceral knowledge; knowledge cascades according to time. Play is a critical framework for learning, but for knowledge to be transmitted and absorbed, the intention of the framework should be directed and resonant.