I'm passionate about design. So are most board game designers (or designers of any type). Isaac Shalev called me a formalist. [Well, he said he was a 'formalist, too' if we're going to be pedantic.] Board games have made a push into formalism with encyclopedias and design courses where terms are codified and a lexicon is built. And I could not be happier about that.
When I see higher level board game design discussion online, I see a lot of 1) math, 2) the prisoner's dilemma, and 3) what I think of as 'engineering' discussion. What's the probability? How do we quantify our player's strategies? At what point will a mechanism break a game? I don't have an issue with these discussions. I believe that they are important aspects of design, in the same way engineering is important to architecture. My contention is that engineering isn't architecture.
Most often, though, what I see in online discussions is people reaching for the right words to describe why a design works/resonates or doesn't. This is the void I want to see filled.
Hi, my name is Sarah and I spent seven years in higher ed. studying theatre. I have taken six college level design courses. And I work in theatre, which is fundamentally about collaboratively designed experiences. Board games are also designed experiences and usually collaborative in some way. The advantage that theatre has is a 2500 year head start on building a lexicon (and an industry).
The principles of design are taught in more than just theatre classes, however. Visual design (or communication design) impacts any industry that has ever used the word 'presentation'. It's just that many of those industries are content with bad design.
You could learn to draw horses really well by buying one of those "Learn to Draw: Horses" books or you could learn the basics of drawing, and in the process also learn how to draw horses or anything else you like. The same is true for design. Knowing the basics of design will make you a better (board game) designer.
So, what is design?
1. Design is an aesthetic organization of elements.
2. Design is creative problem solving.
3. Design is the relationship between content and aesthetics (or form and function).
4. Design is a way of communicating intended use or expected response.
There are amazing board game designers out there who probably don't need to learn the vocabulary of design in order to be good designers, but they may struggle to explain what good design is. A sign of a mature industry is a common shared technical language. The language of design already exists and is only waiting to be adopted into board games.
In this series, I'm outlining the principles of design from a perspective of how they relate to board game design. If you want to read more on your own, the main reference I use is Design Basics by David A. Lauer and Stephen Pentak. Available here.
When I see higher level board game design discussion online, I see a lot of 1) math, 2) the prisoner's dilemma, and 3) what I think of as 'engineering' discussion. What's the probability? How do we quantify our player's strategies? At what point will a mechanism break a game? I don't have an issue with these discussions. I believe that they are important aspects of design, in the same way engineering is important to architecture. My contention is that engineering isn't architecture.
Most often, though, what I see in online discussions is people reaching for the right words to describe why a design works/resonates or doesn't. This is the void I want to see filled.
Hi, my name is Sarah and I spent seven years in higher ed. studying theatre. I have taken six college level design courses. And I work in theatre, which is fundamentally about collaboratively designed experiences. Board games are also designed experiences and usually collaborative in some way. The advantage that theatre has is a 2500 year head start on building a lexicon (and an industry).
The principles of design are taught in more than just theatre classes, however. Visual design (or communication design) impacts any industry that has ever used the word 'presentation'. It's just that many of those industries are content with bad design.
You could learn to draw horses really well by buying one of those "Learn to Draw: Horses" books or you could learn the basics of drawing, and in the process also learn how to draw horses or anything else you like. The same is true for design. Knowing the basics of design will make you a better (board game) designer.
So, what is design?
1. Design is an aesthetic organization of elements.
2. Design is creative problem solving.
3. Design is the relationship between content and aesthetics (or form and function).
4. Design is a way of communicating intended use or expected response.
There are amazing board game designers out there who probably don't need to learn the vocabulary of design in order to be good designers, but they may struggle to explain what good design is. A sign of a mature industry is a common shared technical language. The language of design already exists and is only waiting to be adopted into board games.
In this series, I'm outlining the principles of design from a perspective of how they relate to board game design. If you want to read more on your own, the main reference I use is Design Basics by David A. Lauer and Stephen Pentak. Available here.
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