Understanding Game Design

 Learning Game Design Fundamentals


After reading "What is a game anyway?", it gave me a new perspective of what a game actually is. I've always had a straightforward way of thinking about it. I always knew it was an art as there are so many masterpieces of games out there, but there are so many different elements that actually make a game what it is. In order for a game to function as a game, it has to have rules, activities, goals, decision making and so many more aspects. All of the games that I have played or that are out there have these elements and are the reason why they exist. I have also learned that people have different interpretations of games and what they are, but to me a game is where you get to forget about the outside world and immerse yourself into the experience and enjoy yourself.

Learning how to come up with ideas whether they are good or bad is also essential to game design as you have to go through all of the options you have. After reading "The organic nature of game ideation", it explained some interviews that were conducted on 23 game designers from 8 Finnish game companies and showed many ways that they come up with ideas. I was surprised to learn that a lot of them didn't take in depth classes in brainstorming or ideation concepts but they had many strategies on how to come up with their ideas. One interviewee likes to take long walks in nature to come up with ideas, another interviewee takes long showers to help him come up with ideas. They also rarely used formal techniques which was quite surprising and they liked to bounce around from an initial good idea which was also a very interesting concept to me.

The last article that I read "Four Basic Methods for Generating Ideas" has taught me a lot of ways to generate ideas and build upon them. The way that I usually use and works for me is concentration as I tend to zone out a lot of the time either when I'm at home or going for a walk or going somewhere so it has been really useful. I found that brainstorming for me usually never works unless I'm with a good group of people so that's something I want to work and improve on. Another thing that I do wanna try when I start getting into designing a game is implementing Scamper and seeing what fun ideas I could come up with.



Comments

  1. Wiktoria November 3, 2020 at 7:30 AM

    Hey, there is a lot to learn and read about the game design. There’s just so much detail to it but it helps to make your game design better and let’s you know where you should focus the most to make your game successful. Yes, I think so too that now we all have a better perspective on what a game is and what is involves.

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  2. Rosie MurrayNovember 3, 2020 at 11:33 AM

    Hi Justin. I feel like the reading opened my eyes too. I think there were so many definitions and descriptions and it felt really insightful. It's good that you've worked out how you develop your ideas! it could've been incredibly stressful if you figured it out at the end of the year. Hope the reading gave you direction with your game ideas like it did for me.

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  3. Megan KellyNovember 30, 2020 at 1:38 PM

    Hi Justin, me again! This was really interesting, it’s mad how we read the same thing but get different things from it! It's very clear you understood it well and you really explained everything so well! It's great that you learned from this reading and can use it when making your game! Best of luck with the rest of the semester :) -Megan

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