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Reading Notes Week 02 - Game Design

It must be understood that games require a lot more planning and iteration before development starts.

Board games have been around a lot longer than electronic ones. People can take a lot of inspiration from board games because all of their game concepts/ rules can be applied to video games. Producing a playable paper prototype of a game first takes less time than creating an electronic one. Storyboarding a game is a useful technique to use during the design process.

 The refinement process mainly consists of playtesting for modifications. It's important to have different ideas and designs, as the first idea in your head might not necessarily be the best one.

There are many different game genres and game elements. Not all game elements are suitable for every game. It's important not to bunch together different game elements because they may not cohere.

Take inspiration from other games as it's a useful way of finding new aspects, that can be applied to your own game. When creating your first game it should be a smaller project to avoid getting overwhelmed. The gameplay should be more of a focus rather than the pettiness of story.

Before the polished product is created, the game design process is long and requires a lot of iterative refinement and continuous adjustments during testing.

Useful Articles

Don't Be a Vidiot,by Greg Costikyan
This Article taught me a lot about the starting point of games.

The article explains why we should make tabletop games to learn video game design.

The author gives us his thoughts about game design.

In this article, the author gives advice on creating your first game.

Characters from the Heroquest board game
(Link To Image by Ade McOran-Campbell)








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  1. Ciaran DowlingOctober 14, 2018 at 7:53 PM

    Hey Conor
    Thanks for commenting on my Game Brainstorm Ideas blog. This is a very good blog you have and you seem to have good thoughts about creating your game. I agree with you saying that it is good not to bunch different game elements together as it may end up making your game worse. Also agree with starting our game projects small and not something that will overwhelm us. Looking forward to seeing more of your blogs. :)

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    Replies
    1. Conor BrennanOctober 14, 2018 at 11:06 PM

      No problem, thanks for commenting on my blog too.

      Delete
  2. UnknownNovember 26, 2018 at 3:44 AM

    Hey Conor ,
    Was great to see your thoughts on this reading. I definitely agree that you need to do a massive amount of planning before you even start your game. Even with all the planning we all did for our own games it can still be a little bit difficult to know what to try and do next after completing something in your game.

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