Game design

[xechnao]

The first step in design is that of the individual's perspective. This means that you have to make a system that will provide the things that you want each player to be able to track. The second step is that of the gametable perspective. This means to structure only what should have to be tracked regarding the common or shared environment. The third and final step is to elaborate the product of the first step so to produce the structure of the second step. This one will be the final product of your design.

This is the way I see as the most appropriate one for best results regarding the quality of the game.

So, what about you?

 

[Wik]

Hm. Good question. What's the process of a game design?

Having just got my first draft done on my own game, I'm pretty interested in the subject.

I say, start with a concept, and then base your design around the concept, and then refine the concept a bit more to suit some of your game designs, and then touch the game design a bit more, and so on.

In terms of actual rules, I think the first step is to say what you want the game to focus on, and build your mechanics around that. With my game, I wanted to make something that allowed the bulk of PC advancement to happen during play (rather than the trials of "levelling up").

Which is more or less what you said - the game mechanics need to focus on what makes your game unique.

I think the second step is trying to find a good unified mechanic system. these days, a unified mechanic is pretty much necessary.

 

[Katemare]

I can suggest one more step: once you establish a concept, it's useful to try to find a system that already does that. First, there might be no point in making another one, secondly, solutions used there can give you ideas and insight on problems.

 

[Reynard]

The most important step in game design is testing. You want a working prototype as early in the design process as possible and you want to play it as often as possible, making revisions to the design based on the experience of actual play.

I have two games in the prototype phase (which I need to get back to): a non-collectible resource management card game and a multiplayer poker based strategy card game. The former took probably 20 working hours over a couple of weeks to get to a playable stage; the latter took about an hour's worth of design. But each has already gone through revisions based on the experience of playing them, in some cases major revisions and in some cases minor ones.

But had i ignored this fundamental step, i might have had a "complete" game that was utter crap.