In the past 10 years working with, teaching and consulting on game design, I’ve seen, time and again, teams struggle with some basic aspect of their games’ working.
Sometimes it’s a cool theme that doesn’t deliver on gameplay, or a fun core mechanic that doesn’t develop as the game progresses. Others it’s a good core loop that doesn’t feel purposeful, or a single interaction that feels out of place. It often seems like game design is too fleeting and volatile to be fully grasped and put to good work. One team’s strength is another’s fault, and there’s an overall sense of “mechanics” being the sole matter of the craft: something isn’t working? We’ve got to put in a new mechanic.
For this article, I’d like to share a framework I’ve been developing and using with these teams, based on, and along with, essential materials such as the MDA, 4 Keys 2 Fun and Gamer Motivation Model frameworks. I hope this can be of use both for aspiring developers and experienced ones that feel like the dots aren’t connecting, as well as indie teams that don’t have a dedicated game designer but sense that they should delve deeper into it.