Stimulating Design

So we've disappeared for a while. Part of that's because we've been busy at DigiPen. But part of that's also because my perspective on game design has undergone quite the metamorphosis over the last few months.

I previously thought game design could exist in a vacuum. That's what this blog was about. I thought I could simply come up with the perfect idea and the rest would fall into place. Obviously, that line of thinking has changed drastically.

You see, while game design is more teachable now than it was decades ago, there's still no substitute for research, experimentation, and experience. I've designed a few games for school projects now, just barely getting onto my feet. The curriculum is slow, spending lots of time covering basic fundamentals before gradually building and combining usable concepts. But iterating upon those simple projects has taught me far more about my chosen field than many of the lectures I've been to. And that seems to be the point.

Game design requires outside stimuli, more so than any other creative field. Designs need to be tested over and over again. It's good to test them on oneself first, but the insight of peers and total strangers is highly valuable data. I've learned this through experience. I've had prototypes I liked broken down again and again, before finally I find a dynamic that makes a game somewhat enjoyable and nuanced. If things worked like I thought they did, I would've just found a great dynamic and made the game in a minute. You don't find the perfect idea, you work towards the perfect idea.

The semester's not even over yet, and my view on game design has already been broken down and rebuilt. The change has been for the better. And now that I've found some confidence to stand on my own and take risks, the Sonic Project is cast in a new light.

First, we need to break down the design to the mechanics and dynamics we want to build the core game experience around. Then we need to find a way to implement those ideas, a way to make something playable. Then, once we have a working prototype, we need to have other people play it so that we can get feedback to improve it. Once we get to that point where we can implement and design freely, we can make real progress toward exploring game design concepts for the Sonic universe.

So here's what's on the agenda. Most importantly, we need to find an engine or some such thing where we can implement our ideas without too much technical hassle (since we're both beginning programmers, after all). But while the search is on, we should give some serious thought to what mechanics should be at our core gameplay.

This will all have to take a backseat to our work at DigiPen, of course. But we can still plan for the future.