lewpuls's blog

I go to a college game club during the academic year. Recently a couple of the college students have designed their own games and brought them to playtest at the club. One of these is the past president, now a graduate student, who’s been working on games for several years and so it wasn’t surprising. His game that’s a combination of deck building and lots of dice rolling is quite popular. The other is more of a surprise, a 19-year-old woman who had not seemed very serious about games, who’s full of life and enthusiasm about all kinds of things, yet who buckled down and designed games.

Here is an example of how a simple misunderstanding in the rules can break a game.

I was thinking about a time when my department head came to my game design class unannounced to evaluate my teaching, and I wasn’t “lecturing” to the students. They were working on game projects. (This was not an introductory class.) She seemed surprised that I wasn’t lecturing, but that may be because she typically taught introductory computer literacy style classes such as how to use Microsoft Office. Classes that teach use of specific office software can be taught more or less by rote: if you want to make something bold you highlight it and press control-B or click the Bold button. If you change margins you do thus and so. And so forth.

These intro software classes don’t have to be taught entirely by rote but commonly they are, complete with what I call “monkey books”.

I'll be at Origins in Columbus OH next week. I'm fairly easy to spot if you'd like to talk, at 6'6", 305 pounds (I was impressed with the size of NFL offensive tackles until I became that size), bald on top (not male pattern baldness, just a general lack of hair), mustache, glasses. I may be wearing a hat at times so the baldness may not be evident.

I am giving four different (free) talks about game design, Friday at 7 PM, Saturday at 11AM and 7, and Sunday at 10AM. One hour to talk, then up to an hour for questions. See the program for topic details.

[My thanks to “Sagrilarus” of Fortress:AT for the question that stimulated this attempt at classification.]

Phases (sometimes called stages) in a game design are important. These are distinctly different periods of play through the course of a game. They provide at least a perception, if not an actuality, of change, growth, and learning. Phases help the feeling that there's more variety in the game, as well. They help avoid a perception of "sameness" in the gameplay. A game that is "too long" may feel too long because there are not enough phases, not because any specific amount of time has passed. In contrast, many short games have only one phase.