What is game design to you?

[KaiserMk7]

As far as I would be inclined to suggest, game design falls within the functional, rather than aesthetic, branch of the broader field of design. It is the design of the systems that shape player interaction. Barring contrast of important elements, visual feedback, subtle suggestion, and other such indicators, it's divorced from the art direction. Likewise, it's mostly divorced from audio and writing; sounds and texts are relevant not for their contents, but for how and under what conditions they're used and how they nudge players in a given direction, and non-interactive cutscene choreography is not game design at all. Aesthetic design is certainly present within gamedev in coexistence within game design, but they're fundamentally separate.
I invite differing opinions and further insight and discussion. I'm interested to see what others think on the matter.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

There are multiple levels to game design. It is a multidisciplinary skill and it demands creativity and life experience. There's difficulty progression/enemy spawn/economy balance, which requires understanding of math, probability and economics. There's also level design, which is more of an art and requires some understanding of storytelling to create memorable worlds/levels. And there's also metagame strategy, like balancing different types of skill trees/weapon types/character progress, which requires playtesting and an understanding of human psychology. To be honest, understanding human psychology and what motivates people to stick with games is important in general to game design.

There's more to it that is genre specific but in general, it is a multidisciplinary subject and the more you bring to the table in terms of experiences with entertainment media, history, math skills and experience with games of various genres, the better you will be at it.

 

[ciro64]

Game design to me is understanding the appeal of your game and building on it.

I call Star Fox Zero's stealth mission a game design horror because it does everything it wasn't supposed to do lol.

 

[Deleted member 2077]

game design seems too complicated to explain taking as example modern gaming, it feels like doing dissection with how heavily artistic it became.
Maybe taking as example classic, simplistic(and not so much) games like tetris, snake, cards, chess,etc and ask again what's game design it becomes for me more simple, it's coming up with a series of rules that putting them together and making me interact with them can give my brain a sense of challenge, purpose and accomplishment, the more clever they are the more it can make me feel I'm having fun.
Of course today that weight is shared with artistic design and direction: music, drawing, painting, cinematography, storytelling, writing, etc. But the core is there in every game: well designed(or not) set of rules.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Game design is game design to me
Write out your ideas on paper and pay someone to make it, stonks

 

[YourWishes]

"If it's not fun, why bother"

For a more legitimate answer; Game design is itself a form of art, and like all forms of art it is up to the observer to find the meaning and pleasure from it.

Designing a game that is fun is like creating art that is good; You may be able to create something enjoyed or loved by many, or you may end up creating something niche that only certain people enjoy.

Personally, I can tend to find enjoyment in almost all games' designs, even if it's not good, it's still something someone had made at some point and there's an enjoyment in that of itself, but I understand I'm the minority in this case.

 

[trickybus]

There's difficulty progression/enemy spawn/economy balance, which requires understanding of math, probability and economics.

Are these aspects that can also be accomplished through intuition as well as formal study?

I'm always curious as to what kinds of seemingly unrelated knowledge supports a game's development but even with developer interviews, it's not always clear. There seems to be an distinct line between game creators that recognize the disparate aspects which contribute to successful design—which can lead to hiring experts to cover fields they aren't familiar with—and other creators who develop based on gut instinct.

I haven't noticed a pattern that subscribes success to a particular development style (if there is one) but perhaps others have?

 

[KaiserMk7]

Are these aspects that can also be accomplished through intuition as well as formal study?

I'm always curious as to what kinds of seemingly unrelated knowledge supports a game's development but even with developer interviews, it's not always clear. There seems to be an distinct line between game creators that recognize the disparate aspects which contribute to successful design—which can lead to hiring experts to cover fields they aren't familiar with—and other creators who develop based on gut instinct.

I haven't noticed a pattern that subscribes success to a particular development style (if there is one) but perhaps others have?

I've also questioned how many of the brilliant little things I notice now and then are entirely deliberate vs instinctual.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

Are these aspects that can also be accomplished through intuition as well as formal study?

I'm always curious as to what kinds of seemingly unrelated knowledge supports a game's development but even with developer interviews, it's not always clear. There seems to be an distinct line between game creators that recognize the disparate aspects which contribute to successful design—which can lead to hiring experts to cover fields they aren't familiar with—and other creators who develop based on gut instinct.

I haven't noticed a pattern that subscribes success to a particular development style (if there is one) but perhaps others have?

Depends on the game you are trying to make. If it is a simulation game like Sim City, it definitively requires some level of understanding of economics. But a run of the mill JRPG might not require that. Also there's some level of trial and error and player feedback that can help to get those systems tuned.

 

[Morgana Veil]

C++ and a bunch of ones and zeros.
I honestly have no idea what it actually takes to design a game, but much respect to those who do it.

 

[Tonberry]

To quote the great Bob Mortimer:
"It's just magic!"

 

[Morgana Veil]

To quote the great Bob Mortimer:
"It's just magic!"

 

[thumbsdown]

game design seems too complicated to explain taking as example modern gaming, it feels like doing dissection with how heavily artistic it became.
Maybe taking as example classic, simplistic(and not so much) games like tetris, snake, cards, chess,etc and ask again what's game design it becomes for me more simple, it's coming up with a series of rules that putting them together and making me interact with them can give my brain a sense of challenge, purpose and accomplishment, the more clever they are the more it can make me feel I'm having fun.
Of course today that weight is shared with artistic design and direction: music, drawing, painting, cinematography, storytelling, writing, etc. But the core is there in every game: well designed(or not) set of rules.

The other day I was making a write-up on "what defines a game" and came up with the same conclusion, using my own words and examples throughout indie games on itch.io, like baba is you (the prototype) and some other jam games that tend to be raw and more like inspired by the old ones. Haven't published yet, tho.

 

[GatorCountry]

Why the F***?!

Not the thread, I mean in a nutshell, design? You mean like the nuts and bolts? ugh. Holy hell in a handbasket. You set physics but they do what they want. Don't you dare introduce a new enemy type in an otherwise working world. Got virtual barriers? Sometimes. etcetera on forever until one day it just stops being broken and works.

So what video game design to me mean can be captured in "Why the F***?!"

Half the time I can't tell you how I got things working. Half the time I gave up on one problem to focus on another only to fix the first by accident.

Why the F***?!

 

[trickybus]

Why the F***?!

Not the thread, I mean in a nutshell, design? You mean like the nuts and bolts? ugh. Holy hell in a handbasket. You set physics but they do what they want. Don't you dare introduce a new enemy type in an otherwise working world. Got virtual barriers? Sometimes. etcetera on forever until one day it just stops being broken and works.

So what video game design to me mean can be captured in "Why the F***?!"

Half the time I can't tell you how I got things working. Half the time I gave up on one problem to focus on another only to fix the first by accident.

Why the F***?!

In other words, magic.

 

[dropsmegamega]

Well, its fundamentally very simple, as you said you basically create a system, which is like a set of rules of how interactions will happen and tune then in the direction you think its more fun or interesting. And then apply these rules in a hopefully creative way with good world/level design. I don't think this has really changed from simpler times, at best it has become more complex.

From very broad questions like what are you trying to make and what its the main appeal of it to more specific questions like what stats the characters will have and how they will interact with each other; I believe all these should be answered in a design doc. I also think its more important to be creative rather than to have deep knowledge, a lot of problems will show up, but if you approach everything logically step by step and have patience for trial and error you will eventually arrive at something good. That being said giving a look at other systems sure helps. Even looking at other games design docs can be a very interesting experience.

Also because of its broader nature I can't think of game design separated/divorced of other aspects like art direction. From things like how many frames an attack will have and how fast it will play and how impactful it should look like to things like how long a cutscene will be to even aesthetic impact of cutscenes and places, I try to think about all these coherently with the overall design.