The heart of a game idea

When designing a product for the first time, it's always challenging to focus on the core aspects instead of the finished product. This is true for game & web design, through to multimedia interface design. A group of game designers or developers can easily get side tracked discussing how a game should look or feel.


So, you have a killer idea for a game, it has psychic space marines and it’s a puzzle platform game. That’s great, but how does it work beneath all this fancy imagery? While having a picture in your head of what you’d like to create is not a bad thing, it’s always a good idea to strip it down to its core elements and work from there. How can we put these features into a workable concept?

Idea: You have the idea to make a platform game, where the player is a space marine with psychic powers. This will allow him to target and pick up blocks without touching them. The player is able to throw blocks at enemies and solve puzzles by launching blocks into switches or by pulling levers with his power.

Let’s break this down to its core elements.

Control: a character, which can manipulate objects from a distance.
Advancement: The player can manipulate a blocks, switches and levers to progress through each stage. Example; A block is picked up and placed on a pressure switch, opening a gate.
Hazards: Enemy characters. What else is a hazard to the player? Pitfalls! The player could use their ability to create bridges out of blocks. A timer! The player must complete the stage within a minute.

From this, we’re able to fit it into the MDA;
Mechanics – The rules and conditions of the game.
Dynamics – The flow of the game.
Aesthetics – The experience of the game.

"The player must utilize an object manipulation mechanic to progress through puzzle and hazard dynamics of the game, resulting in an aesthetic of on the fly thinking."

Now we have the basis for the game, from here you could make a throwaway prototype to see if the concept works or even flesh it out further. Rather than focusing on the look and feel, we’ve gathered a few simple elements to create a solid game concept.

Links:
MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research
The Quixotic Engineer - Mechanics, Dynamics & Aesthetics