We had another visitor into our Game Design Camp yesterday. Bryant Paul Johnson is an amazing artist, webcomic creator and graphic novelist, and he has also done work in the video game industry. He came in yesterday to talk to our young gamers about the process of game design, although the conversation at one point turned to “modding” games, the role of the player in the modern age of gaming, and the use of cheat codes. It was pretty fascinating to hear the kids talk about things they have discovered — either by chance or by design of the programmers — and Bryant did a wonderful job of guiding the discussion.
The various elements of the design process that Bryant discussed included:
- Design: Coming up a concept or idea, and establishing logical rules for game play. Bryant actually went into the idea of rules for quite a bit, pointing that games with no rules or with rules that don’t have any logical underpinning are not fun for the player. Rules — such as how you get rewards or how you lose a life — allow the player to have expectations from the game.
- Programming: The coding work that is the architectural underneath the game. Bryant explained that programming is the most important work you almost never see. And this is the part that takes the longest to do, too. He noted that some programmers leave various surprises embedded in the work, such as Easter Eggs, or little images or doorways or other items as a way to break up the monotony of months of programming work.
- Art: The graphic elements, including style and movement and flow. Bryant is an artist, so he explained to the camp how the art is the interface that users see the most (even though the code is what they play) so the artwork has to be designed to be user-friendly, but also interesting. The style of a game often comes from the art, he noted.
- Sound: The use of music and sound effects to engage the player and shape the mood of the game. This is interesting because the computers in our lab don’t have speakers, so we’ve been playing silently. But Bryant noted that sound effects can shape the gaming experience — adding foreshadowing elements or setting the emotional response at certain levels for the user.
- Play-testing: Playing games in order to find out where they don’t work, and then fix the bugs. In fact, one of our campers found a bug in Gamestar Mechanic, which we reported, and the company responded rather quickly, saying they were now working on it. And the player who noticed the bug gets a special “badge” from Gamestar. I’ve pointed out to the camp that developers need players to test games, and that clear communication of where the bugs are is crucial (what level, what action, etc.)
I’ve been lucky to get visitors into the camp. They have been generous with their time and their expertise.
Peace (in the game),
Kevin