Gateway to Game Design

A few months ago I embarked upon a journey of discovery; I wanted to seriously explore the realm of game design (specifically traditional games - board games, card games, miniature games etc. as opposed to video games). Game design is wondeful; it blankets into many different schools of thought: mathematics, psychology, logic, critical thinking, creative writing and design.

My initial discovery pertained to the appropriate naming convention for game design: Ludology.

Ludology (noun) - The study of games and gaming, especially video games.

Over my 10 years of experience playing miniature wargames (a relatively short time, I acknowledge) I have been able to gather, perhaps sometimes unconsciously, an understanding of a repetoire of game mechanisms. I shan't go into any specifics at this time, but I began to work out what did and didn't work when it came to understanding a rules set.

Over the past couple of years I've been able to cobble together a couple of rules set, both for miniatures games. The first was based on the video game 'Bioshock', retelling the story of the fall of Rapture as a skirmish wargame. This was never playtested and ultimately served as an interesting distraction whilst studying at university (some people went out and got hammered, I wrote a game).

The second game, 21 or Bust, a skirmish game based on the American Old West actually got to the playtesting stage. The game was dice less, and used a unique (I think) mechanic for determining player success - games of Blackjack. I'd like to divulge more on this game in it's own article sometime in the future, I feel it's an interesting topic that deserves it's own space. The following pictures are from the playtest version of the game:

I digress.

The aim of this series of articles is to share with you some of the resources I have found helpful in opening up the world of game design. These resourcs include books, podcasts, websites and videos I have found useful in my learning.

 

Ludology podcast - Ryan Sturm and Geoff Engelstein

A podcast devoted to the hows and whys of board game design, hosted by two published game designers. I will shamefully admit that my exposure to board games over the years has been rather minimal (I've only played two games of monopoly, ever). A lot of board game design translates directly over to miniature wargames, so this is an excellent source of information. Of specific interest should be episodes 123, 124 and 125, where Geoff and Ryan discuss their extensive checklist of questions game designers should ask themselves during the process of designing a game.

 

Magic the Gathering Drive to Work podcast - Mark Rosewater

Mark Rosewater, head designer for Magic the Gathering, records a podcast twice a week during his commute to work. He is a character, to say the least. The 'Drive to Work' podcast covers a wide variety of topics related to Magic the Gathering, and very occasiuonaly he will talk more specifically about game design (usually with the context of the card game as a frame of reference). The back catalogue here is extensive (I have yet to dig deeper), but a required listen is the series '10 Things very game should have': Goal, Rules, Interactions, Catch up, Inertia, Surprise, Strategy, Fun, Flavour, Hook.

 

Game Developers Conference (GDC) Vault

The GDC is an annual event (which leans heavily towards video games) where game designers from all over the world give lectures on different aspects of game design. Many of these lectures are made publicly viewable in the GDC Vault after the event. The event has been running for 20 odd years now, so the back catalogue is immense. I have been slowly trawling through the 2016 catalogue; the following are some lectures I have found I have found particularly interesting:

"Life Is Strange" Case Study: Using Interactive Storytelling and Game Design to Tackle Real-World Problems by Raoul Barbet, Michel Koch

A Course About Game Balance by Ian Schreiber

History and Game Design by Chris King  

Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons by Mark Rosewater

That's enough for now, or this post will become an essay by itself!

I will endeavour to make this article part of a series on game design - as I come across useful repositories of information I'll try and talk about them. I have only scratched the surface here.