Theory isn’t enough

Right now I’m taking a small break from designing the game Gangsters, to tell you guys how I’m working with it.

Since previously I’ve had a document for Gangsters in which I’ve written about a lot of different elements in the game as separate things. I’ve written about the police, about the trading, about the expansion of territory and how to “offer protection”. I wrote this months ago and every now and then ever since, I’ve looked at it, changing some stuff, letting it all sink in. I don’t really think you can “crunch design” a good game (not saying that this game will be good for sure) and therefore I keep several designs for quite some time, just to give me a good amount of time to think about it.

I now feel that Gangsters has been out of the oven for long enough and I’m ready to mix the ingredients.

What I’m doing now is by using the previously mentioned document I’m trying to write a set of rules, as they would appear if one were to buy the game in a store. This helps me find eventual contradictions and some holes in the design.

Now, this won’t make the game nearly done. It’s merely a revision further. After I’m done writing this draft of rules, the game will probably pretty much…well… suck! But that’s nothing to be grumpy about. In a way, it’s a good thing. If only I can isolate why it sucks, maybe I can fix it, making the next revision much better.

Once the draft is complete I will try to trick some friends to come over and play it with me. I might have to bribe them with some tasty chocolate pudding and sweet vanilla sauce but in the end, it’ll be worth it.

I’m sure that after just one play-through I will have a bunch of notes I have to go through. I will discover scenarios I haven’t thought about, some major imbalances, play-styles I didn’t consider and even more holes in the design. Afterwards I’ll have to go back to the desk and try and fix these things.

Then afterwards, a real problem occurs; how will I trick my friends into coming over again to play the game they have such horrible memories of? Chocolate pudding just won’t cut it…

I’m in need of some suggestions!

If you agree, disagree or just have some neutral opinion about the things I write, I’d love to hear them. Please comment.

Let there be a blog!

My name is Arcade. I guess that alone tells a lot about me.

I’m a designer.

Most of all, I’m a game designer. It’s what I love doing; fiddling with game mechanics, gameplay, cognitive psychology, human and computer interaction, etc.

I’m currently employed at GRIN i Gothenburg as a level designer, working on a project with the project name: Faith.

I have a Bachelor Degree from the University in Skövde in Sweden after studying three years of Computer Game Development – Game Design.

The reason I call this blog “Learning Game Design” isn’t because I’m going to try and teach you anything, but because I will keep learning every day and become better at what I do. I’d say I’m quite skilled today, but then again I thought the same thing about myself a few years ago. The following year I thought “Man, was I way off or what?” and yet again, one year later history repeated itself and that’s life, right? As I learn new things and find new angles and perspectives I thought I’d share some of it with you guys.

I’m hoping that in one year from now I’ll be able to read some of the early posts in this blog and think “Hey, I’m even more excellent at everything now!”.

There are many different reasons to “blog”, none being the best. This is something I thought I’d discuss in a coming post but I just wanted to mention that I’ll only post when I actually have something to say and therefor there might be times without new posts being published for quite some time.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading what I write and I sure hope I’ll enjoy writing what you’ll read!