Towards Standardizing Game Designing Processes: Game Designers’ Initiation Tool

Abstract

This chapter intends to present game designers’ perspectives which elaborates on the ways they approach designing games. While it is diverse, the interpretive analysis of 17 game designers’ perspectives will be able to shed light on how game-designing processes may be influenced by their experience-based and reflective practice, or whether they apply formal methods based on how game-designing fields represent. Furthermore, it discusses whether the formal methods explained by the game designers resonate with existing literature and compare the relevance between the practices and the literature that advocates best practices. The results are discussed through interpretivism paradigm, to provide the essence of game designers’ experiences and approaches. Lastly, it concludes with a list of common practices in their designing processes for games and a future direction towards how we can understand game designers’ perspectives and ease the designing process of games.

1. Introduction

The Australian game industry has experienced a boom over the past few years. As reported by Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA), 76% of players are actively playing video games [1]. Parents reason that playing video games is a way to help educate their children (19%), and 79% of them generally use games for education [1]. Lastly, the survey indicated that 86% of parents play games that are relevant to general knowledge, 83% games provide digital knowledge, 71% benefit gameplay by gaining life skills, and 74% suggested that games provide cultural knowledge [1]. Video games are reportedly used in schools for five reasons: teach students (71%), motivate them (70%), help them pay attention (64%), help teachers teach (63%), and help schools remain relevant (62%) [1]. While this presented interesting facts about how games are used in learning, the effectiveness of using games was reasoned as follows: gaining new knowledge (34%), new software/tools (30%), and new skills (26%) [1]. The survey from IGEA 2020 revealed that the games industry grew by 29% year-on-year in 2020 and is now at a net worth of $185 million [2]. The development of Australian video game platforms has dramatically increased along with challenges faced in the industry, including a lack of international events, limited contact with investors, reduced productivity, and a decrease of contractual revenue [3, 4]. While recommendations were made to restore the Australian Interactive Games Fund to support game developers [5], similar challenges were listed in the 2021 report with an added challenge of “lack of appropriate government funding”, “attracting early-stage development funding”, and “hiring employees with specialized skills” [6]. The preferred platforms for game development were PC (48%) and mobile/tablet (44%). Hence, the digital games or video games used and discussed within this research project and participants are playable on PC and iPad.

Games have the potential to provide an experience that a player encounters through a series of interactions with the system. Costikyan [7] suggests that a game is a form of art in which participants, terms players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game decisions in the pursuit of a goal. Games have existed for decades and have shown a positive influence in educational settings. Here, they are intended to promote the development of cognitive skills or to practice various skills in a virtual environment [8]. Defining games relies upon various aspects and points of view. Stenros [9] reviewed 60 game definitions clearly showed the difficulty of gaining consensus on game design requirements, and recommended the need to avoid building limitations by adopting ontological foundations. Prominently, gaming research intends to define a more general game definition as, “a system in which players engage in artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome” [10].

To examine and simplify educational game (EG) design process, it is crucial to address general game design process first, because it predates specific notions such as EG [11, 12]. Recent studies have shown that the EG design process involves various stakeholders, with interdisciplinary collaboration necessary to move towards providing successful EGs for schools [13, 14]. It asserts the need for an in-depth and empirical analysis of game developers, video game designers, and teacher perspectives to explore collaborative research design approaches. Moreover, an interdisciplinary debate about whether teachers’ experiences may inform game designers’ decision-making processes has recently been addressed as a gap, by several authors [15, 16, 17]. Recently, Keogh has reported that game designers’ perspectives require theoretical and empirical attention to understand a “fuller range of dispositions held by videogame makers” [13, 14]. This requires a focus on how game designers differentiate between the approaches of designing games and EGs processes, and whether their inspirations, desires, and beliefs influence such practices. It is useful to consider game designers and teachers first as games/EG play testers, who construct their experience as they play and design. Such constructed experiences require an empirical and theoretical unpacking of their experiences and perspectives on the phenomenon.

2. Related literature

Game design is known for its complex nature, which includes multiple iterations and crafting work. Game design is known for its artistic, creative processes that require technical integration [18]. Zimmerman [19] described it as an iterative designing process where designers craft play and construct a set of rules directing players’ play experience, while indirectly connecting game system rules to enable this experience. From a developer’s perspective, iteration can be perceived as polishing and improving a product to ensure its requirements are functional [20]. The nature of the iterative design process is such that those designed rules are inhabited and enacted by the players, which in turn “creates an emerging pattern of behaviour, sensation, social exchange, and meaning” [19]. The intention of game design is to address its compelling nature through play. Game software design has been increasingly used to engage with players/students, enabling players to develop skills and knowledge to succeed in the digital world [21]. Cross [21] states that design knowledge is deeply rooted in the various processes and people involved during the process. The techniques and strategies designers use guide them in their work; the built products are also held in such a way that shows how designed artifacts should be made.

As game design processes derive from software design and development; design, art, software, and teams all work together on developing processes to produce a finished product [22], and it is perceived to achieve positive results [23, 24]. Prominent game design guides devote whole chapters to discussing the processes or stages of designing games [11, 25, 26, 27]. For instance, Fullerton [27] frames the core concepts of designing games through a play-centric model, which is iterative (cyclic) in nature and repeats the phases (idea generation, conceptualization, testing, and evaluation) to advocate for the needs of the players. Schell [11] elaborates on the importance of game experience and elements while surrounding the discussion on tools and approaches with self-reflective, iterative, and game designers’ experience. For Schell [11], the lack of systematic view or transparency has raised some debates in academia. It is not theoretically organized, but more relevant to practicing design [28]. Salen and Zimmerman [10] also emphasized the testing and iterations of the game as a product to ensure it provides a meaningful experience for the player. Similarly, Adams (2014) emphasizes iterative refinement to elaborate on the design by implementing game components and features and refining them through testing.

Game development also include agile methods, which have been reported to be beneficial, based on placing an iteration at the beginning of the designing process [29, 30] or using iterative design through a scrum (see details of agile¹ method [29] to enable sprints (short documentation of progress through designing and planning game designing procedures) for a reliable end product. To briefly explain, software development methods such as SCRUM, Lean, or Kanban are adapted and applied in game design and development due to games being software [30, 31] and that games are potentially improved with iterations of each prototype [32, 33, 34]. Larman’s meta-analysis also suggested models, including spiral² models for their cyclic nature, or risk-driven approaches rather than strictly specification-driven or prototype-driven processes [32, 34, 36]. Lastly, game design using software modeling approaches and emphasizing the iterative/cyclic nature of designing games requires more empirical or in-depth research methods, that involve the voices of game designers and developers who can share their daily practices in the field [20]. As Kultima [20] suggests, the nature of game development and design is “volatile” and tends to have limited time to form an explicit methodological approach. This does not mean that game developers and designers are not applying/adapting to existing models. Rather, there are various assumptions, design values, beliefs, and prior software design experiences that potentially guide their thought processes. As developers iterate, reflect, and adapt on past successes or failures, these assumptions and values may not always be immediately apparent to them [33, 35, 37, 38].

Due to the adaptive nature of game design, no explicit models are suggested that produce the desired end product, as games are a multidisciplinary field of research that positions the players/intended audiences as end-users [28, 39, 40]. Kultima [28] also argued that game making is not a part of basic education; hence, it has the potential to be misunderstood. It is because game design praxeology sheds light on the experiences that creators go through while making, designing, and developing such games. With game design processes being pluralistic, opportunistic, and iterative [28], their timeliness and the values integrated within the designing are considered a pool of ideas that are combined within a system to create such experience. The published literature acknowledges that a new game can be approached from many different points of view (concept, art, theme, object, etc) [11, 26, 39]. One way to initiate a concise and narrower approach to designing a game is to focus on the game’s core elements [39]. Core elements include rules, core mechanics, the setting or the environment, and the characters or story [39, 41]. This approach is called the game as an artifact.

On a different note, the game development and designing process is centred around ‘who are the audience or the players of the game’. This is because it influenced the decision-making process of selecting designing core elements with the notion of player experience as a priority [11, 25, 42]. Hagen [39] called this approach designing for player experience. Hagen [39] posited that Dewey’s art as experience [43] is relevant to user experience, and advocated for using function (usability of the game) and experience (look and feel) in game design. Hagen [39] reported autobiographical responses of a game design team (game designer, developer, lead designer, etc.) and suggested the need to encourage game designers to reflect upon their experiences and practices or employ different approaches that could be insightful in gaming industry. However, Hagen acknowledges that the experiences of game designers are subjective, and that interviewing one design/development team does not provide rigorousness in understanding the design experience.

In relevance with experience of game designers and players, an expanded game experience (EGE) model was proposed to consider a wide range of factors [44]. The EGE model provides a detailed description of stages and game states that game designers can consider when making conflicting design choices, however, it is yet to be applied by game designers in practice. The factors include:

1. Whether the focus of the game is relevant to a formal structure,

2. The experience required through play,

3. The continuum of gameplay experience.

As described above, a conventional software design process is driven by a list of requirements or specifications; however, in most cases, it is driven by the user’s experience [11, 40]. Here, game designers’ position themselves in the players’ minds where they anticipate what the latter will experience, and then consider their decision-making by designing the game with compelling experiences, similar to achieving desired play experience [40]. Moreover, this is also considered experience-based communication, which seeks to “impart knowledge or skills to users,” as it is crucial for the game to influence players’ personal beliefs and attitudes [40]. Another study presented a Simple Model of a Game (SMG) and explained the design process in the following manner [45]:

1. Idea generation: game goals (effects on player emotions), topics (setting/world/environment), scope, worthiness, feasibility, and features,

2. Design process: A design document (detailed steps of game communication and interaction between players and the game), the game structure (how does the system work?), the scope and its interaction with the player while playing, interactivity style and implementation details,

3. Implementation/development,

4. Testing/modification in relevance to game goals.

Zagal et al. [45] advocated that the success or failure of a game “ultimately depends on the underlying ideas and skills of the designer and developers” (p. 450). Although the model is informative and consistent with software design processes such as agile or scrum, it suggests the need to involve the views and skills of game designers to explore the unique human qualities required.

In addition to being a commercial endeavor, game creation also involves a process that goes beyond just satisfying customers. This complexity adds to the generalizations of the design process in game research. For example, a study observed game design literature and the notion of user-centered design and introduced the concept of “abusive game design”, which explains the challenges of design practice in relation to player advocacy [46]. Drawing such generalization within game design research can potentially add complexity [28]. Another study reported three overlapping phases in design research [47]:

1. Experiential (designers draw from their personal experiences of the design processes)

2. Intellectual (formation of theoretical constructs for design methodologies, principles, and methods)

3. Experimental/empirical (consideration of empirical published research on current practices)

Kultima [28] stated that positioning such theoretical progress aligns with the current field of game design research; however, it is a generic approach. In addition, in the game design literature, the term design patterns is relevant to all game developers [48, 49], however, it has been reported that it is not as valuable in daily practice [28]. The design patterns refer to game designers’ patterns for making games, and how this shapes what they create. That is, design work is more solution-oriented than problem-oriented and uses the designers’ own preceding reference systems.

Moreover, the playability and design patterns in EG have been reported to enhance player experiences that include interaction and blending of educational objectives; however, the tools and guidelines suggested need further explanation by game designers in their practice, as the proposed playability development processes requires heuristics from various stakeholders to test with players. Here, it is essential to note that the design pattern alone is not the solution to a successful game-designing process; however, they are part of game designers’ choices when doing so.

2.1 Magical powers of game designers

The initial assumption about game designers is that they approach learning and teaching through games differently; there is a need to understand and organize the data from game designers’ interviews using a different framework. An EG design is challenging for game designers as they have to correlate, create, and reduce complexity, but facilitate learning. As Kalmpourtzis ([12], p. 53) quotes, “Various factors correlate with each other, creating a complex, yet magical, opportunity to facilitate learning”. The game-designing process has been repeatedly mentioned as an iterative task that is reflected upon with the game’s primary goal in mind. With this thought, “We could try to think of educational game design as a magical triangle, at each corner of which is an important aspect of the design process: Players, Game, and Learning Aspect” ([12], p. 53). This triangle represents “the Magical Powers of the Game Designer”, as a game, that includes educational and fun elements needed to make use of all three aspects. In addition, the game designer is the center of the triangle, and all aspects interact and are inseparable; as the quote suggests, “The role of an educational game designer in this sense is to bring balance to this triangle in order to create an engaging learning game” ([12], p. 55).

Alongside this magical triangle, there are four ‘filters’ that affect the way games are developed. They highly influence the game designers’ perspectives: (1) The Filter of your Inner self, (2) The Filter of Players’ Expectations, (3) The Filter of Designers’ Ethos, and (4) The Filter of Teaching Accuracy.

Referring to the Magical Triangle ([12], p. 54), players, game, and learning aspects and their inter-relationships become essential elements to create games such as story, mechanics, and their interactions [13]. The emphasis is on game designers to ensure that the balance is maintained in the system between the realistic and imaginative context of design. But it is not clear how all these filters fit into the Magic Triangle (Figure 1). Therefore, the need to empirically explore the perspectives, beliefs, and values of game designers that could potentially influence their decision-making through design processes has not yet been theoretically examined.

Figure 1.

The Designers’ Magic Triangle (left). (Adopted from [12].)

3. Theoretical and conceptual relevance of data analysis and interpretation

The conceptual and theoretical framework adopted in this paper relates to Dewey’s theory of experience [50] concepts: growth of experience, purpose, and continuity. As these concepts were relevant to the epistemology and ontology of the research, constructivism belief is situated as the paradigm to allow the construction of new knowledge which welcomes the subjectivity of individual experiences [50]. The growth of experience represents how individuals grow in their careers, experience everyday activities to gain knowledge, learn to achieve their goals, sustain their understanding of the phenomenon, and continue to grow in their experience. The aspects of ‘growth’ are driven by one’s desire to formulate a ‘purpose’ that reverts to the growth of experience with the intelligence of one’s mind. In this context, the adults whose learning methods combine work and studying, or theoretical and practical exposures are highly familiar and productive in their expertise.

The purpose is simple when a desirable quality “…which identifies freedom with power to frame purposes and to execute or carry into effect purposes so framed. Such freedom is, in turn, identical with self-control; for the formation of purposes and the organization of means them are the work of intelligence” ([50], p. 67). Dewey’s description of an actual purpose is that it begins with an impulse. It is always equipped with “end-view”—which is involving “the foresight of the consequences that may result from acting upon that impulse” ([50], p. 67). Game designers create meaning and constantly reflect through their actions as the games are play-tested, designed, prototyped, iterated, or conceptualized. Hence, deriving an enriched experience shows an individualized aspect of comprehending how game designers differentiate games and EGs, how they distinguish between those above, and their dilemmas in the decision-making process that necessarily require their attention.

The principle of Continuity is where each experience taken from the past affects the future experience of the individual. In contrast, interaction refers to the situational and game designers’ influence on players’ or students’ experiences. Dewey believes that the elements of interaction and the situation occur concurrently. Some challenges may be encountered despite the importance of experience, such as “that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative” ([50], p. 13). Hence, the game designers must first comprehend the nature of human experience, stating that the effect judges the experience’s value that this experience has on the individual’s present and future, an individual’s ability to contribute to society. Therefore, it is directly relevant to how game designers evaluate players’ experience while playing the game. In this context, it does not matter whether the player is a gamer or a learner. This is placed directly to the idea of how game designers interact with every individual’s needs, to be able to support their cultural and social differences, and to allow them to learn/play equally and freely. Experience, which may be enjoyable, may not contribute to personal growth or experience with no coherence to a situation that does not necessarily result in a cumulative learning foundation for future learning.

The theory of experience has been discussed and applied in many types of fields, and the prominent Kolb’s cyclic model [51] of experiential theory was built on the works of Dewey and has provided its means in the field of education and EGs. As described above, experiential learning is simply defined from the perspective of how learners experience a phenomenon and use that to facilitate learning. It has become a mutual ground for both teachers and game designers attempting to integrate game-based learning with education [10, 51, 52]:

• Learning involves participation in the real-world

• There are intimate relations between experience and education.

• Understandings are derived from and modified through experience.

• Meaningful learning consists of action and reflection.

• Experiential learning is also based on the belief that people learn best by doing.

3.1 Participant recruitment criteria

Initially, the location was set to Victoria state, Australia; however, due to the pandemic, location expansion was obligatory. With criterion and snowballing recruitment procedures, semi-structured qualitative interviews with 17 game designers in Australia were completed (January 2020–October 2020). The criteria set for the recruitment process are shown in Table 1. Each interview session is approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes (Zoom, Discord, Google meet, MS Teams). This paper interprets one central theme (from six themes) emerging through the coding analysis. Consequently, the phenomenological approach is adopted to allow the researcher to uncover the essence of lived experiences described as the qualitative researcher pursues to identify the phenomenon of human experience and then derive a description representing the experience’s very nature [53]. The essence should not be viewed as a vague idea but rather the ability to identify the meaning embodied in the lived experience [54].

Criteria	Participants’ details
Location	Within Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland. South Australia)
Years of experience	Between 5 years—19 years in the gaming industry
Type of experience	Designing and developing games (all types of genres). Must have experience in designing EGs.
Types of player’s demographics	All demographics. Primary school players’ demographics are beneficial.

Table 1.

Participant recruitment criteria in this study.

3.1.1 Data collection method and interpretation approach

The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and time-stamped. An initial hand-coding approach was adopted before an in-depth thematic analysis using NVivo 10 software. This research adopted a six-step thematic analysis approach [55, 56], as shown in Figure 2. This analysis aims to allow game designers’ perspectives discuss through reflective experience, their experience designing both types of gaming systems (its growth and continuity), and the way they criticize the conceptualization of games before they are designed (framing the purpose of designing games). Interpretive results are discussed through the interpretivism approach, where hermeneutic analysis is adopted to allow the subjectivity of game designers’ experience. Consequently, the results are rigorously discussed to demonstrate experience in designing games and EGs, what they believe games and EGs have in common, and how they distinctively describe their professional opinions. Lastly, the analysis also correlates and is critically interpreted through researchers’ epistemology and ontology position as well as concepts of the theory of experience.

Figure 2.

Steps of thematic analysis. (Adopted from [55].)

4. Interpretive results discussion

This section discusses and interprets the central theme and sub-theme to demonstrate the perspectives of game designers’ towards how they approach towards designing games in their daily routine as game designers. The following question: how do they generally approach designing games and what are their go-to methods/approaches/considerations? Understanding game designers’ approaches and processes (throughout the lifecycle of the game), including any starting steps or crucial steps that they consider throughout their design processes are presented in this theme.

There are two sub-themes identified and categorized to narrow down the following discussion:

1. Formal approaches (game designers explicitly mentioned an approach/model), and

2. Personal experience-based designing approaches (their practice-based experiences, and intuitively adapting to the requirement of the game).

Please note that all names mentioned in the analysis are pseudonyms. The validity consideration of data analysis towards the authenticity and accuracy throughout the research is achieved through techniques including triangulation (examining with theoretical concepts, investigator, and data triangulation), and peer debriefing, prolonged and persistent engagement with the raw data set to allow critical and clarity throughout the analysis and emergence of themes to be compared.

4.1 Formal approaches and processes of game designing

Seven game designer participants mentioned a specific method when asked how they approach the game design process in relation to a specific model or method:

1. Math concept,

2. Game jamming,

3. Three broad ways (via a publisher, solo indie development, and client’s feedback on ideas),

4. Top-down (traditional software design),

5. Bottom-up (non-traditional software design but still effective),

6. Conceptualization from pre-production,

7. Three spaces (theme, mechanics, and props).

With seven uniquely identified game design approaches in the data analysis, it is crucial to describe their unique position, techniques, or steps individually. These methods were distinctively approached with constraint (social control) that influences their decision-making. These constraints are from within their studios or their central pillars/rules or in the timeline in relation to their budget, and the complete design processes must be reached despite these constraints. Hence, I observed that game designers were reflecting towards the situation where they work, they are obliged to adapt into that social and collaborative environment (freedom), where their ideas develop throughout the process (continuity) to ensure that they complete their collaborations through teamwork and that their belief in exchanging ideas and concepts was thoroughly demonstrated through their explanations; The growth of experience based on a purpose.

I begin with the math concept approach and how it assists game designers. It is known as a fundamental foundation of successful game design, and it is commonly adopted in software engineering. It allows the ability to provide a calculative trajectory in correspondence to the player’s choices and ensures that mechanics work entirely in response to the player’s interactions with the game. As metaphorically suggested by video game developer “It is the flour to the cake that game developers are trying to bake. Without it, the cake wouldn’t rise” [57]. In addition, Stenquist [57] demonstrated that the Math Concept allows the game design to become ‘whole’: animation, game engine architecture, gameplay scripting, analyzing player’s interaction, timers, physics, graphics, path findings, etc., are all achieved through the Math Concept. For instance, Betty explained:

“Starting with an idea, or math concept or a theme, which will have a math concept method, or we find the artwork, but we need an innovative idea to go with it. So, we use the math concept to create the procedural design by leveling our design through prototyping and iterations constantly, to visualise it as a whole game idea”.

Game jamming was mentioned by Joel. Game Jams are also conducted yearly around the globe as a platform to provide game designers a way to rapidly prototype game design ideas. It inspires growth across the gaming industry through the use of a given theme and constraints [35, 58, 59], that are represented in annual game design competitions [60], and recognized as the world’s most significant game development events, with approximately 150% growth per year [61]. For instance, Joel explained how this process allows game designers to develop their abilities to learn, challenge themselves, become creative, and work through macro and micro levels of design within time constraints. It can be observed that the continuous repetition of the initial purpose of the game within the situational constraints provided to game designers also demonstrates social control and freedom. Hence, their personal desires and inspirations to become a game designers allow their persistent willingness to take challenges and grow their experience as game designers believe that you learn by doing. As Dewey acknowledges that art is not disconnected from our everyday lives and experiences, it is an ‘intensified’ form of experience. Art as experience ([43], p. 3) seems to be something that happens; it is the experience of the artist doing the work and the audience receiving it [46]. As Joel indicates:

“Usually, game jams or a quick mini game project. Game jamming process is associated with micro development challenges, small teams, and time allocation. Our interpretation of the theme expands to the game idea, we'll re-evaluate and try, iterative, test-driven with often emergent acumen. What part is fun, and then pivot to do that…brainstorming, and then in a real-world (a studio)”

The three broad ways consist of (1) publisher, (2) solo indie development, and (3) client’s feedback on ideas. For instance, Terry states: “Why are we making this game at all? What’s the point? What are the circumstances in which the game is being made?” In addition, production constraints and the timeline of projects are influential in decision-making throughout the processes, Terry asserted: “What is the context? Competitive games relevance? Target audience? De-constructing relevant games? And are there any core pillars to allow multiple decision-making to remain consistent?” Understanding at a meta-macro level is necessary for game designers to understand the concept and explore its possibilities. The concept is developed and is then in need of an overall game design. For instance, Terry explained that there is usually a lack of players or target audience available for game ideas to be tested. Therefore, a website called Quantic Foundry provides detailed research into different demographics and preferences for different styles of gameplay [62]. This positively assists their game design process.

As mentioned by Terry: “it’s about adding continuous details, layers of details… articulate it in words… images… iterate… prototype…” This process reconnects with how the continuity, interaction, and freedom concepts (Dewey) can be positioned in designing games. In addition, game designers’ developing experience increases versatility in game ideas. The situation in which they comprehend and evaluate the impacts of their decisions on how they approach games design is complicated and time constrained. As shown, it is a ‘rolling-the-ball’ scenario type: to visualize what lead to the desired outcome and what hindered the process. As Terry quotes:

“… [Questions stated above] … do a deconstruction of the competition to know what the conventions are […] correlating with the defined design pillars or core pillars, so, selecting central tenets that you repeatedly encounter as you're making decisions. Identify its supporting elements and correlating with initial idea [discuss with team] … ideally, get feedback from people outside of the team to get fresh perspectives.”

The top-down approach is known as the traditional game design approach [63], where game designers indulge in defining and abstracting an idea which is the foundational concept for the game at its initial stage: it breaks down its game style, setting, and plot motivations within the concept of the game including story elements, fiction and esthetics, etc., ultimately demonstrating a cohesive game design (see Raymond’s extract below). To begin with, it is focused on the concepts (vision) and context of a game; as the layers progress in the model, the game-related functions are clarified. As Raymond explained, there is a need to have a clear and detailed definition of crucial game features, including mechanics, rules, and interactive action elements to allow an accurate picture to emerge through the process. To provide verbs that manipulate the system and provide feedback to the player and the game world, as actions are performed. Hence, the desired concepts, goals, and features are built. This model is available in Gamasutra [63]. The layered view of a Game design model [63], is presented in Figure 3. As Raymond quotes:

Figure 3.

Layered view of a game’s design: top-down and bottom-up process. (Adopted from [63].)

“… A lot of it is primarily top-down approach, starting with a vision of the game. It's an admission that involves fictional worlds, story elements, some interactive action elements. It's what you might imagine being a typically inspired response to playing games… so all my play experiences of many games begin to envision things of the whole product.”

The bottom-up approach is further mentioned by Raymond and Charlie. As shown in Figure 3, Raymond also uses the bottom-up approach as it allows him to begin with more minor interactive elements before the whole game system idea emerges: “I have used both approaches and it depends on what the game really needs”. Charlie, on the other hand, she emphasized that: “I feel it’s very effective the bottom-up approach because we’re starting with the minor interactions with small elements by defining and exploring what they are and that guides how the rest of the game’s content and design holds out”. The top-down and bottom-up approaches are mainly found in software design, and these are commonly used terms [64], however, the interpretations vary in a different context, and the technical basis of the terms requires differences in starting points for designing software.

The sixth approach is called conceptualisation from pre-production (low-level to high-level design), which was highlighted by James. This approach is similar to how Adams [42] explained that there are three stages of the design process: (1) concept stage, (2) elaboration stage, and (3) tuning stage. This matches the game design approaches adopted by 10 of the game designer participants. It can be argued that these three stages are not applied by all 10 game designers in this study in the same fashion. However, the similarity must be addressed. I observed that James acknowledged this approach as: “So, a specific reason to venture into designing/amending changes in game design. Sometimes, we encounter a specific design problem: how are we going to fix that?”. The concept stage usually requires a few weeks to sort the game ideas and test to ensure that the elaboration stage has begun. Here continuity and interaction through playtesting rectify the concept before the product develops a deeper sense of understanding and enables shared experiences through learning and engaging with other team members.

[James]: […] starting with a pre-production phase as designers. That's essentially like the ‘incubation period.’ […] start thinking about what it is that you want to do? Why? […] a reason to accomplish such as the need to improve this [existing game part], or we need to add features [design]… for further enhancement … Learning what players want more, brainstorming ideas [a high-level design to low-level design]³… iterating details, reaffirming amongst designers, and then unfolding with the team to develop it.

The last method suggested was three spaces: (1) theme, (2) mechanics (rules and interaction) and (3) prop. This method was described by Timothy that you begin designing a game on either of the three spaces and explore further the depths of core interactions, players’ position in the design and rules, etc.; as explained in [65]. Here, concepts of interaction and situations are prominently observed. The game designers are inspired and create their desired ‘intelligence’ to form around the concept. The sole purpose is formed in parallel to the game system. With intelligence, the freedom that game designers must execute the purpose of designing games is practically framed throughout the procedure in parallel, resulting in a complex game design. As Timothy explains:

“[…] remembering older games’ concepts and constantly reflecting on them to recreate them differently… that games are designed from one of three spaces: theme (like the fiction, game narrative), a mechanic (interaction of rules or rules like objects that you wish to combine) or you have a prop (a material or toy that you use as inspiration for the game)!”

4.2 Personal experience-based designing approaches

According to the data, most game designers do not start a game from scratch. Joel mentioned: “It is highly unlikely that we begin from scratch!”. They mostly begin with an idea, a concept, or a theme that they have been thinking or reflecting on. Sometimes, they reflect upon the best and the worst games played in their experience and took that idea forward [66]. As observed in the earlier sub-theme, other game designer participants mentioned either a theme, a concept, a mechanic, or a physical prop (tangible material) to start a game design approach.

This theme generalizes how 10 out of 17 participants had a similar approach to designing games. Their description to ‘how they design games’ was informal, inconsistent, interchangeable, and unpredictable; however, their overarching terms used to describe their processes included:

1. Conceptualization,

2. Reflective-based design experiences, and

3. Generalization of designing processes that were influenced by various formal methods. As they suggested that their beginning steps are to consider:

[Nora]: “self-learning or positioning themselves in the context”,

[Blaire]: “conceptualisation and brainstorming”,

[Ross]: “who is my audience?”,

[Paige]: “Is there a theme or goal with rules?”,

[Max]: “Brainstorming and experience expectations.”

[Anne]: “Specific concept challenge and link mechanics and rule”,

[Charlie]: “Starting with a verb.”

[Tia]: “researching what exist and innovate”,

[Zack]: “Ideation and mechanics”,

[Warren]: “Concept art, conversations, themes, mental models”.

Some published work supports certain processes such as brainstorming and conceptualizing approaches, along with techniques including ideation, prototyping, testing, player’s psychology involved in designing games [18, 27, 42].

All game designers mentioned the process of conceptualisation in close relation to prototyping and iteration. Dewey positions art as experience as a part of the overall human experience [46]; that it is born in the lives of the artists based on the conditions and societies that surround them. This demonstrates the importance of art in experience and its relevance to the growth of experience [46, 55]. To quote Dewey ([43], p. 3):

“When an art product once attains classic status, it somehow becomes isolated from the human conditions under which it was brought into being and from the human consequences it engenders in actual life-experience.”

This section concludes with different approaches to game designing that the game design participants use in their practice.

5. Proposing Game Designers’ Initiation tool

As the interpretive results discussion suggests that there are two broad approaches that game designers use for game designing: Formal methods and experience-based approach. To conceptualize these approaches, methods, and techniques that are suggested by the game designer participants, the representation of these methods and approaches are presented in Figure 4. This framework is called the Game Designers’ initiation tool. As Dewey suggested in terms of generalization and registering the experiences individuals’ have accounts for a more revolutionized and conceptualized understanding of a complex phenomenon such as the game design process. He states:

Figure 4.

Proposing Game Designers’ initiation tool.

“The idea that generalization, purposes, etc., are individual mental processes did not originate until experience had registered such a change that the functions of the individualized mind were productive of objective achievements and hence, capable of external observation.” ([66], p. 215)

6. Further recommendation

This chapter reports on a part of a larger study, however, it is crucial to identify and examine the difference in the approaches to designing games that are addressed by the game designers based in Australia and how that seems to be a challenging aspect in researching fields of game design and development. There is a need to ensure the inclusivity of game designers/developers from the industry into academia to help nurture the desired processes of game designing with the researching drive in the field. Moreover, I would urge the researchers in the field to explore a few more sub-areas through this lens of experiential learning:

1. Understanding the gaps between practices with researching game models and frameworks and whether those are useful for the game designers/developers.

2. What is actively adopted in the industry by the stakeholders and what is being proposed by the academia in the gaming field.

3. Finding a bridge between the two gaps mentioned to enable a better understanding across all game genre/fields including EGs, serious game, instructional game designs as well as other areas.

4. Finding effective data collection methods that can enable a deeper learning curve for researchers as they may potentially gain knowledge from experts in the field.

7. Conclusion

This chapter identifies the prominent game designing approaches and methods that the game designers in Australian gaming industry apply. Two prominent categories have emerged through the data analysis: Formal methods and experience-based methods. Game Designers’ Initiation tool is proposed to assist game designers in their practice to begin their designing process. This is to demonstrate an easy projection on selecting the game design process based on what other factors are compiled into their game ideas. This research will continue to bridge the gap between various gaming genres.