Image Source: David Mullich

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This guide encourages you to follow the Play-Centric design process, developed by Fullerton (2006), which focuses on the game-player and is iterative, incremental, and agile.

The game-player is the key. You are building a game for them and you'll want to focus on and involve them throughout the game creation effort. In order to succeed, your efforts should proceed in an iterative fashion - take small steps, validate, and adjust as necessary. Along the way, you can adjust your goals for player experience, create and use prototypes, and conduct playtesting sessions.

Iterative

The Play-Centric model is iterative, which means we keep looping through these key steps many, many times. However, it is important to keep in mind that as we get closer and closer to releasing our game, the loops (and hopefully the changes and revisions) get smaller and smaller.

Fig. 1. Fullerton, T. (2014). Model for iterative game design: playtest, evaluate, and revise. From game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. CRC press.

Digging Deeper

David Mullich from the Los Angeles Film School has posted a great series of presentations that cover the game design process. Some additional presentations are included here:

• Game Mechanics
• Narrative Elements
• Social Mechanics
• Psychology of Play
• Game-Based Learning
• Dramatic Elements
• Playtesting
• Brainstorming and Game Pitches

References

Fullerton, T. (2006). Play-centric games education. Computer, 39(6), 36-42.

Fullerton, T. (2014). Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. CRC press.