There are plenty of books, blogs, podcasts and chat groups out there that help guide you into the world of game design. I’m not here to impart a sublime awakening that you can’t get elsewhere. This is just my take and perhaps you will find it useful.
Game design only happens when you are gaming
I might rephrase the title of this blog, “Game design only happens when you are gaming.” And if you’ve ever researched game design before, you have no doubt heard this advice a lot – play games…like, a lot of games. Why JB? How does playing games help me design games? I’m glad you asked. Let’s talk baseball (stay with me a little while longer).
Game design is a creative art. And like all creative arts, experience in the medium matters. Not just as a creator but as a participant. I’ve been a gamer all my life, born to a pair of gamers who played D&D in the late 70s. I started dabbling in game design in the 3rd grade. I spent 25 years playing around with it for grins before ever attempting to publish. At the time I pitched my first game ever, I had read precisely zero books, blogs, chat groups. No podcasts. No conversations with other game designers. I was pitching purely through the experience gained playing games my entire life.
I thought I might use music as my creative comparison for this blog, as it is a very nice parallel and would certainly make the point nicely. But I’m actually going to use baseball, specifically pitching, because I love baseball. And it’s my blog. Hold up JB, pitching is not a creative art form! The hell it isn’t! Do we have business?
So pitching. How many types of pitches can you name? If you’re a casual fan you likely will name these four: fastball, curveball, slider, change-up. If you’re a diehard, you can rattle off several more obscure pitches: knuckleball, knuckle curve, slurve, gyroball, forkball, splitter, cutter, etc. It happens maybe once in a generation that someone invents a ‘new pitch’. It’s super rare.
The point is, there are maybe a dozen types of pitches and you might see only 5 or 6 types of pitches across all pitchers from both teams in any given game and this has been true since long before I was born.
But is it? Are there really only a few pitches? Of course not. Did you know that within each type of pitch there are dozens of nuanced variations? The behavior of a pitch changes with grip, arm angle, location, speed and several other factors. Some pitchers throw multiple variations of the same pitch: say a fastball with a late tail right, another fastball a few mph faster with less tail, and another with a late tail left and slightly down. We’re talking a few degrees here and there. Highly nuanced.
The point of all of these variations is to keep the hitter from predicting the exact location of the pitch and make sure the bat doesn’t connect with the center of the ball when the hitter swings, because that is when bad things happen. I might restate that point as the following: to make the mix of pitches in each at bat a unique experience for the hitter. My favorite pitcher of all time is Greg Maddux and he was legendary during his pitching years for his mix of pitches and ability to create unique at bats.
And that is what we do as game designers: provide unique experiences for gamers. Now obviously our goal is joy from the gamer and not to watch the hitter break the bat across their knee (or the gaming equivalent – flip the table), but allow me my leap here.
We innovate with nuance within a basic framework of the familiar and known to the gamer, producing a new experience that is both an extension of what they know and a new kind of joy that haven’t had. Game design mechanics are like pitches. We can only rattle off a dozen types of game mechanics, but there are dozens more variations within each type of game mechanic. And how often is an entirely new game mechanic invented? Maybe once in a generation (which in gaming terms is maybe 5 years)?
We understand the basics of Worker Placement. Each game described as ‘Worker Placement’ on its bio as its central mechanic presents sets a certain basic understanding of what to expect. But it also provides an interesting a new way to experience the mechanic. Maybe it alters the basic decision matrix for how or where to place, or alters the way the components are handled, or alters the components themselves (such as using dice as workers). The creative canvas is wide open, man.
And this is why game design happens when you’re gaming. You want to see game mechanics in motion, you want to experience all the little nuances and variations within a game mechanic. Absorb it. Break it down. Add it to your toolbox in pieces. Be inspired by one of those pieces. Be a Master Builder.
You also want to see game design from another person’s perspective, most especially outside of your experience or world view. The more you experience, the more you have available for you to play with in your own ventures. My talents really started to take shape and grow when I started spending a lot of time talking to other game designers. Change the grip, the arm angle, location and speed.
I spent a few years of my early publishing career trying to invent new game mechanics. I created some wild shit man! The owner of the company that signed my first ever publishing contract, Grey Fox Games, told me once that I was not a game designer, but a mad scientist. I wanted to come out like Katniss, the girl on fire and wow everyone with these innovative and bold new games. Those were fun experiments, but little in the way of meaningful games emerged. I heard more than once, “that’s cool but where is the game.” This is a pitfall I think a number of new game designers experience.
I did manage to eventually invent a new game mechanic in Flotilla (in partnership with the most talented person I know Mike Mihealsick), but it wasn’t until I backed off my original approach, played around 200 new-to-me games in one year and designed over two dozen other games utilizing existing popular game mechanics, specifically focusing on innovation within each popular mechanic, that I even began to understand how to create defining boundaries for a new mechanic.
The connection, the energy, that is the core. Make me connect with your creation emotionally. Think about what you can do to recreate that love you have for a specific game in a new experience, a nuanced experience that displays your touch. That’s step one and you’re on the right path.
So here’s my advice: study the games you love. Study the games that you connect with, that resonate with you in a lasting way. Think about why you love them and connect with them. Focus on the emotion. Yes, game design is math. But so is music and pitching. The math is not the hard part. New game designers often have the ability to make something that works but…is dead boring.