GAME DESIGN
INTRODUCTION |
1 ANALOG DESIGN |
The Evolution of Industrial Design Practices | The Evolution of Industrial Design Thinking
2 DIGITAL DESIGN |
The Digitalization of Design Practice | The Digitalization of Design Thinking
3 A SHORT HISTORY OF GAME DESIGN |
The First 40 Years | Present and Future
4 AREAS OF GAME DESIGN |
The Role of the Game Designer | Triad, Tetrad, and the Function of Narration
5 PRACTICES OF GAME DESIGN |
The Process of Game Development | The Principle of Worldbuilding | Authorship in Game Design | Don't Follow These Rules! A Primer for Playtesting by Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman
III GAME STUDIES
INTRODUCTION |
1 THEORIES OF ANALOG GAMES VS. THEORIES OF DIGITAL GAMES |
Pre-Industrial Theories of Playing and Games | Industrial Theories of Playing and Games
2 THE SCHISMS OF GAME STUDIES |
Sedimentative Approaches: Game Design Theories | Exaptative Approaches 1: Theories from Social Sciences | Exaptative Approaches 2: Theories from the Humanities
3 DESIDERATUM: OVERCOMING THE SCHISMS |
Longing for Synthesis | Adaptative Approaches
4 PERSPECTIVES OF RESEARCH 1: DIGITAL GAMES |
Mechanics | Story | Aesthetics | Technology | Transmedia
5 PERSPECTIVES OF RESEARCH 2: SERIOUS GAMES |
Mechanics, Story, Aesthetics, Technology, Transmedia | Gamification | Opposition to Industrialism
EPILOG
ACADEMIZATION AND AESTHETIC PRODUCTION |
The Cultural Rise of Games | Game Studies and Digital Game Design Education in Germany | International Higher Game Design Education: Six Examples from Five Countries by André Czauderna | Structure of an Undergraduate Program for Game Design | Consequences of Academization
SOURCES |
Prolog
Playing, Making, Thinking Games
In the early 21st century we are now experiencing—as witnesses and as protagonists—the aesthetic development and cultural rise of a new audiovisual form of expression and narration. Like earlier forms of defining audiovisual media, such as theater, film, and television, digital games are shaping our self-perception as well as our perception of the world around us. Parallel to this development, two new practices and fields of research are emerging:
For one, new practices in the field of software development—part handicraft, part art—are coming about, organized under the headings “Media Design” and “Game Design.” Just as games differentiate themselves from movies through dramatic composition and means of representation—by tending towards nonlinearity and iterative experiences—, so does game design differentiate itself from the traditional practices of analog film production through iterative and less-linear tendencies.
Second, a new academic discipline is forming: the analytical and critical interpretation of digital games. Just as we speak of literary studies, film studies, or design studies, so may we speak of Game Studies.
Consequently, the goal of this book is to offer a part-historical, part-theoretical introduction to address three aspects of digital games: 1) the origin and history of the new medium digital games, 2) the innovative processes of their production, and 3) the emerging discipline of their academic investigation. The following questions lie at the center of this study:
How did digital games come to be and how did they rise to become the central audiovisual form of expression and storytelling in digital culture?
How did the procedures of their technical-artistic production develop and what are the current practices of game design?
How did the academic analysis of the social effects and cultural meaning of digital games form?
Where is Game Studies today and in what direction is it developing?
In three chapters I will outline the stages of the media-historical development of analog and digital games (I Games), the history and artistic practices of their production in the context of analog and digital design (II Game Design), as well as the most important approaches and research questions of their analysis from the different perspectives of game design theory, social sciences and humanities (III Game Studies). Particular attention will be placed on the mutual relationship between game design and Game Studies in artistic-academic education and research.
First, two terms—which this volume already carries in its title—require clarification: games and game design. In Game Studies there has been some debate over which term best describes their object of scholarly focus—computer game, videogame, digital game. Computer game connotes games played on PCs and hardly those played on consoles, tablets or smartphones. Videogame connotes games that use moving pictures, meaning also pre-digital games like TENNIS FOR TWO (1958) or analog arcade games of the 1960s and 1970s. Corresponding thoughts can be found, for example, by Jesper Juul and Tristan Donovan.1 Both authors have, for different reasons, nonetheless decided on the term videogame. However, in order to place the emphasis on games with a basis in digital technology, in this book I will primarily speak of digital games and will use games as a synonym to refer to the same concept. Older forms of games I will specifically reference as analog games.2
The term ‘game design’ is no less undefined. An important reason for this is the lack of codification with regard to the different roles involved in the production of digital games. So far a clear division of labor, as witnessed in theater, film and television, does not exist in game production. Game design is, therefore, often used to mean two different things: either to designate the entire process of game development or to designate a specific field of work in this production process along with the likes of game arts or game informatics.3
The title of this introduction uses the term clearly in the first, synecdochic sense: This book concerns itself with digital games, their production and their analysis. A central aspect of this process of production is, of course, game design in the second, narrower sense, which will be a central topic in chapter II Game
