My Thoughts on the Game Design Process
What is a Game?
From my observation, I have had a good read of the articles listed below and I have to say there are quite a few things about games that bring a different perspective to me now. I have also taken some notes on some of the things listed. I always used to play games as a child no matter where it was. Either that will be outside in the field or being indoors on a video game console. But I never told myself, What is actually a game?
From my point of view, there are different components inside of a game. For example,
- Rules
- Players
- Actions
- Resources
- A Story
- A Goal
All of these things I listed above is what is in every single game. But the one key element that I listed off on that list is a Goal.
Goal :
Everything that we want to do in life, involves some sort of goal to get us closer to what we want. That same thing applies to games and making games. In games, there are goals and objectives that help us get closer to winning the game or obtaining victory. And in order to get to our goals, we have to :
- Make the right decisions
- Overcoming hard obstacles
- Getting past hard bosses
- Doing things that involve mental or physical attributes etc
And every good game has these components. Since I was reading this article, I got a better sense of how a game works and what are the key elements to a game etc.
Nature of Game Ideation
Before reading this, I always used to think that developing ideas for game goes by a term called "Idea Generation" but there is another one and it is called "Game Ideation" which the definition of it means "the formation of ideas or concepts".
Now there are alot of ways on how to generate ideas. But the most popular method on how to generate ideas is Brainstorming in my opinion. And this is used constantly among game designers.
From what I read, the way how there can be a successful brainstorming session is that there has to be an experienced facilitator guiding the process and can help the group of people to work better together. Overall the job of the facilitator is to make everyone's jobs easier.
Another way people make such amazing ideas is by :
- Seeking inspiration
- Doing purposeful activities
People usually when thinking of ideas or brainstorming aren't really to come up with such great ideas on the spot when actually trying to brainstorm. Sometimes people get great ideas by gaining some sort of inspiration from an outside source such as watching television shows and movies , playing other games , things found on social media like Facebook , Instagram or Youtube. Usually when our minds are at peace and we aren't consuming content and we are just in a solitude state, that is when we are able to think deeply and think of the best ideas somewhere outside in a field , beach or a cool breeze outside. This is coming from my experience.
Methods for Generating ideas
From what I read, there are a few great methods when it comes to generating new ideas.
- Concentration
- Brainstorming
- Scamper
- Ramsey
From my experience, Scamper and Ramsey are two methods that I am not really familiar with.
SCAMPER is one method that I was not familiar until now. Apparently it is an acroynm for the words Subsitute , Combine , Adapt , Modify , Put , Eliminate , Reverse. And the way how this works is that it is a whole bunch of methods that the game designer uses to find his idea. And the Ramsey method is something that is quite a difficult method to use. What i found out about this method is that the basis of this method is that you need have to collect the maximum amount of information on a topic to assemble games. After that , you study this information looking for hidden implications and imperceptible connections in it until the concept of the game is collected from these pieces. The effectiveness of this method depends only on two factors : The amount of information received and the effort spent studying this information.
I found this information about the Ramsey Method and SCAMPER Methodat :
More interesting links that I have read :
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