Game Design

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Prof. Amy Lupin
Shooting Star
Posts: 1983
Joined: Sat Aug 16, 2003 6:05 pm
Location: Slytherin

Game Design

Post by Prof. Amy Lupin »

As a boardgame enthusiast, I've harboured ambitions about designing my own game or two. I already have a prototype for one game idea using a theme that's very "me" and some of my favourite mechanics such as worker placement and set collection. Unfortunately though, I only seem to be able to work on it sporadically, but in the last few months, I showed it to a friend of mine who has designed some games for her own group, and she gave me some useful feedback and tips as to how to go from here. I haven't had much of a chance to work on it since, but I'm looking forward to returning to it in the (hopefully) near future.

This isn't my first attempt at game design though. In my early teens I explored creating games based on media I was enjoying at the time, from Harry Potter (obviously ;) ), Heroes of Might and Magic, and, finally, the Lost Years of Merlin. Part of the issue then, was that I only had limited exposure to boardgames (such as the classics, namely Monopoly, Risk and Cluedo), so though I had vague ideas of what I wanted the game to be about, I couldn't really see how to actually implement those concepts. I still have some of the notes I made back then, so I may revisit these game ideas in due course.

The friend I mentioned previously suggested collaborating on a game design sometime, and I'm definitely keen to take her up on that (living cities apart presents a bit of a stumbling block to that though, but hopefully when things settle down on both our sides, we'll be able to make something happen). I also had some boardgame ideas arise from a discussion with another friend who told me about a game he'd come across with a very unusual theme, so I joked about creating games that were more meta boardgaming themed. Though I probably wouldn't look at taking those particular ideas seriously, I might still explore them as a way of expanding on my game design skills, so that when I return to the worker placement game, I'll be in a much better position to make that game happen (even if only to get used to the concept of failing better faster).

Boardgames aren't the only realm of game design I'm curious about. I'd really like to give HTML 5 game development a whirl sometime. I don't have any immediate ideas for it, but it would be a fun way to put coding concepts into practice. I chanced upon a book called "The Gamer's Guide to Coding", which does exactly that, though at the moment, it's unfortunately collecting dust.

Have you explored or been curious about game design? Are there any games you've worked on?
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Aurelia West
Cleansweep One
Posts: 504
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:21 am

Re: Game Design

Post by Aurelia West »

I actually took an intro class on game design when I was pretty young. I don't play board games now as much as I wish I did, but I really enjoyed the class nonetheless and one of our class projects was to brainstorm game ideas and expand upon the mechanics involved. I believe we even created very base-level prototypes of our games as presentation material, which I may still have lying around somewhere.

I admittedly haven't really thought about it for ages now, but I would definitely be interested in learning more now that I may have a better understanding. I have a friend who has worked on various video games which is amazing, plus I'm still in contact with the teacher from that game design course.
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