Presentation given at The State of Play in Dublin, 2017.

1. Orthodoxies and
technologies in game
design
Katharine Neil
The State of Play, 2017
@haikus_by_KN

2. GDD for Asteroids, 1970s Rumoured publisher GDD weighing scale, early 1990s/early 2000s
Best practice design process before: how we used to model and evaluate our designs

3. Concept
development
Preproduction Alpha Beta Release
Now we can finally play
our game… but it sucks!

4. “Game design is a second order problem
where the designer can only indirectly affect
the player’s experience”
- Rules of Play, Salen & Zimmerman, 2003
Published in 2004
Published in 2001

5. Improved
production tools
TEST
Digital distribution
Rise of indie and
mobile games
More games,
built faster
Games-as-a-service
Open alpha
Analysis of player metrics More playtesting
data
Best practice design process today: how we model and evaluate our designs
“Design by making” (crafts-based design)
BUILD

6. THE ACCEPTED

7. Data-driven design
Design driven by analysis of
player metrics
Marketing optimisation and
business intelligence techniques in
game design
New design team roles: data
scientists, product managers
Many designers are effectively designed-out of game
design, their creative autonomy eliminated. Some
designers effectively have robot overlords in the form of
metrics.
Jennifer Whitson,
Sociologist.
Scientists! Putting the
experiments into
experimental game
design.

8. What about the art of game design?
Allegra Geller having private (design?) time with a game she she designed in
David Cronenburg’s film Existenz

9. We know that science and technology in the wrong
hands is dangerous
Peter Thiel, tech billionaire and arseholeGladOS

10. “Thanks, we’ll take it from here.”
We’ll take that data, thanks. (For our
design models.)
Also that AI and procedural content
generation tech. (To aid our design
process.)
Programming teams making fancy
bespoke tools? Yep, we’ll repurpose
those, thanks.
Byeee!
Game design support technology should look more
like this:

11. Great art is supported by great design technology

12. ...to make paper prototypes while everyone
else on the team has access to high-tech, fit-
for-purpose tools.

13. Unorthodox technology for game design

14. Machinations
Notation and interactive
simulation for modelling and
balancing game systems
Warning: not easy! But worth
learning.
http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/
Book: “Game Mechanics: Advanced Design”, Adams & Dormans

15. The Sentient Sketchbook
● AI-assisted top-down sketching of
game levels – particularly strategy
game maps
● Evaluates maps for player balance
and gameplay pacing
● Shows navigable paths, choke points
● Fleshes out details and suggests
alternative designs while you sketch
http://www.sentientsketchbook.com/

16. Progressimo Progression design tool
for branching and open-
world progression
structures e.g. levels
and missions, game-as-
a-service, adventure
games, action RPGs,
open world games
Calculates game state,
mission unlocking
Interactive
“walk-throughs” of
game/mission
progressionContact me about joining the beta:
katharine.neil@gmail.com

17. Links etc.
“How we design games now, and why”, Critical Hits, Ed. Zoe
Jellicoe, 2016 http://www.zoejellicoe.com/
https://medium.com/@haikus_by_KN/how-we-design-games-
now-and-why-bcbc1deb7559
katharine.neil@gmail.com @haikus_by_KN