When I was planning my wedding, I didn't pick out wedding colors; I picked out a painting: Edgar Degas' Dancers, Pink and Green. I told my florist, cake baker, and bridesmaids that I didn't care what colors they went with as long as the colors were found in the painting. The painting also served as a texture reference for flowers and fabrics. Most people I shared the painting with had never heard of someone approaching wedding planning like that.
Recently on Facebook, someone responded to a post I made by saying that it sounded like I 'lean creative' when designing board games, meaning I use the artistic and not analytic parts of my brain. I would argue I can't help it. Turns out my default approach to creative problems is to treat them like set design. When you're a Freudian, every problem looks like suppressed sexual energy. For me, every creative problem looks like a set design challenge.
Scenic design, stage design, and set design are terms used for the conceptualization and rendering/modeling of scenery for theatre. Since the term 'set' implies traditionally produced plays, that's the term I'll use when talking about standard design practices in theatre. 'Theatrical' design includes set, lighting, costume, and sound design.
There are a number of ways to start designing a set. The order matters less than the creative process of going thru the steps. For our purposes, I list them as: concept, image research, text research, story analysis, sketch, and iteration. The real step one in theatrical design is to read the script, but since board games don't exist before we design them, I'm skipping this step.
Directors and designers usually will have general concepts for the direction they want the design to go. For instance, a traditionally performed version of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream could have a set design concept of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Initial concepts are usually one to two sentences. For board game design, concepts generally start on idea lists. You could also develop your concept into a design vision statement that your refer back to throughout the whole design process. This is not particularly new territory, so let's move on.
Image research is the area that was drilled into me in college but few people outside of theatre seem familiar with. The idea is not to find images that represent your design, but images that have the same feel. These images are frequently arranged into 'mood boards'. You have to know the mood of your design before you actually start designing. While you could list some emotions, or write a story, or listen to some music, I contend that the best way to decide on the mood of a visual design is by looking at other images. Even if this does not become a regular part of your design process (I have yet to design board games with a mood board), it is still a good exercise in focusing creatively on the feelings you wish to evoke in a design. It could also be a good idea if you are not a good artist but want to better convey your ideas on how the final product could feel, particularly if you are trying to communicate the potential feel of a design to a co-designer early in the design process. The great part about image research is that even though you shouldn't go looking for ideas to directly rip-off, you will frequently find that styles, colors, and other elements from your images will seep into your design.
I don't expect board game designers to start making mood boards. On the other hand, there is no such thing as too much text research. Text research may still involve images, but the information can easily be conveyed in written form, whereas image research cannot. First and foremost, every game designer should research the structure of their game. If theatrical designers have to be familiar with dramatic structure, in spite of not being authors, board game designers should be required to know as much as they can possibly learn about the mechanics they have designed into their games: terms, usage in other games, common pitfalls. 99% of the time, board game design is part of a larger collaboration to create a product. While some may argue that designing in a vacuum is important to their creative process, staying in a vacuum will result in letting down your collaborators by not putting forth the effort to actually understand the area of design you are working in. Board games are not like novels, where most of the creative work is done by one person (Ryan Laukat excepted); board games are like theatre, each member of the team contributes to the artistic success of the whole. And part of the design process for theatre is research. (Obviously, authors do a lot of research as well, but many won't read other contemporary works in the genre they write in.)
In addition to structure research, there are other important areas of text research. Theatrical designers study genre, style, and conventions. Genre is a broad classification of subject matter. In theatre, genres include comedy, tragedy, musical, farce, and melodrama. If you are designing a horror game, you should be generally familiar with the horror genre across mediums. Style is the manner in which the genre is expressed. Typical theatrical styles include realism/naturalism, period/historical, and abstract (as in art, not games). Another way to describe style is a recurring way of doing things. Sticking to a single style helps keep elements consistent in look and feel. Within style, elements can be motivated or non-motivated (these are lighting design terms). Motivated elements have a practical rationale for their existence. Non-motivated elements only add to the mood, but have no practical purpose. Conventions are stock short-hand methods to convey certain things to your viewer. Conventions are usually unique to certain styles or genres. Breaking conventions can make your game feel fresh, but the more conventions you adhere to the easier your game will be to learn. This is true even if the conventions are thematic ties and not purely mechanical. In short, conventions reduce mental load for players. Research styles and conventions by selecting a genre and taking a close look at the elements from that genre you wish to include in your game. Try to keep track of what you pull inspiration from, so you can return to it if you need future inspiration.
I'll be going into story analysis in another post. The short version is that every game has a story, so every designer should carefully consider the story elements of their game. Especially if the game has a theme (even if it doesn't tell a story).
After all of that research and analysis, it's time to sketch! I tend to sketch ideas for boards or tableaus just before starting to prototype. Set designers will sketch a number of different looks or scenes that occur during a play. I find that mentally or visually planning the visual/physical impact of a game design helps me make decisions about which directions to take the design in the early stages of the design process. These sketches should primarily be the basic shapes and functionality of the physical game.
Just like game designers, set designers iterate. After sketching, designers will usually build a white model of the set, similar to black-and-white prototypes. Then set designers will begin work on color renderings (two-dimensional color images of the set or set pieces) and a final model. Even then, there will be iterations based as the rehearsal process finalizes how the set must function. Eventually, someone else (hopefully) builds the set to look like the model and renderings. Sound familiar?
Here's the whole process again, but from a board game perspective:
-Come up with a concept for a game.
-Decide how you want the game to feel.
-Research mechanics and genre/theme.
-Consider the story your game tells.
-Sketch some rough ideas.
-Build a prototype.
I realize this list feels like it goes against the 'rush to prototype' mantra. But you could do everything on the list prior to prototyping in a few hours or less. Sure, you'll have to do more research later, but you don't have to spend too long on the other steps. Eventually, these steps can become so instinctual that you'll never be able to design any other way. At least, that's been my experience.
For this post, I relied heavily on Stage Lighting: Fundamentals and Applications, by Richard Dunham, found here, as my scenic design teacher didn't teach from a text book.
Recently on Facebook, someone responded to a post I made by saying that it sounded like I 'lean creative' when designing board games, meaning I use the artistic and not analytic parts of my brain. I would argue I can't help it. Turns out my default approach to creative problems is to treat them like set design. When you're a Freudian, every problem looks like suppressed sexual energy. For me, every creative problem looks like a set design challenge.
Scenic design, stage design, and set design are terms used for the conceptualization and rendering/modeling of scenery for theatre. Since the term 'set' implies traditionally produced plays, that's the term I'll use when talking about standard design practices in theatre. 'Theatrical' design includes set, lighting, costume, and sound design.
There are a number of ways to start designing a set. The order matters less than the creative process of going thru the steps. For our purposes, I list them as: concept, image research, text research, story analysis, sketch, and iteration. The real step one in theatrical design is to read the script, but since board games don't exist before we design them, I'm skipping this step.
Directors and designers usually will have general concepts for the direction they want the design to go. For instance, a traditionally performed version of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream could have a set design concept of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Initial concepts are usually one to two sentences. For board game design, concepts generally start on idea lists. You could also develop your concept into a design vision statement that your refer back to throughout the whole design process. This is not particularly new territory, so let's move on.
Image research is the area that was drilled into me in college but few people outside of theatre seem familiar with. The idea is not to find images that represent your design, but images that have the same feel. These images are frequently arranged into 'mood boards'. You have to know the mood of your design before you actually start designing. While you could list some emotions, or write a story, or listen to some music, I contend that the best way to decide on the mood of a visual design is by looking at other images. Even if this does not become a regular part of your design process (I have yet to design board games with a mood board), it is still a good exercise in focusing creatively on the feelings you wish to evoke in a design. It could also be a good idea if you are not a good artist but want to better convey your ideas on how the final product could feel, particularly if you are trying to communicate the potential feel of a design to a co-designer early in the design process. The great part about image research is that even though you shouldn't go looking for ideas to directly rip-off, you will frequently find that styles, colors, and other elements from your images will seep into your design.
I don't expect board game designers to start making mood boards. On the other hand, there is no such thing as too much text research. Text research may still involve images, but the information can easily be conveyed in written form, whereas image research cannot. First and foremost, every game designer should research the structure of their game. If theatrical designers have to be familiar with dramatic structure, in spite of not being authors, board game designers should be required to know as much as they can possibly learn about the mechanics they have designed into their games: terms, usage in other games, common pitfalls. 99% of the time, board game design is part of a larger collaboration to create a product. While some may argue that designing in a vacuum is important to their creative process, staying in a vacuum will result in letting down your collaborators by not putting forth the effort to actually understand the area of design you are working in. Board games are not like novels, where most of the creative work is done by one person (Ryan Laukat excepted); board games are like theatre, each member of the team contributes to the artistic success of the whole. And part of the design process for theatre is research. (Obviously, authors do a lot of research as well, but many won't read other contemporary works in the genre they write in.)
In addition to structure research, there are other important areas of text research. Theatrical designers study genre, style, and conventions. Genre is a broad classification of subject matter. In theatre, genres include comedy, tragedy, musical, farce, and melodrama. If you are designing a horror game, you should be generally familiar with the horror genre across mediums. Style is the manner in which the genre is expressed. Typical theatrical styles include realism/naturalism, period/historical, and abstract (as in art, not games). Another way to describe style is a recurring way of doing things. Sticking to a single style helps keep elements consistent in look and feel. Within style, elements can be motivated or non-motivated (these are lighting design terms). Motivated elements have a practical rationale for their existence. Non-motivated elements only add to the mood, but have no practical purpose. Conventions are stock short-hand methods to convey certain things to your viewer. Conventions are usually unique to certain styles or genres. Breaking conventions can make your game feel fresh, but the more conventions you adhere to the easier your game will be to learn. This is true even if the conventions are thematic ties and not purely mechanical. In short, conventions reduce mental load for players. Research styles and conventions by selecting a genre and taking a close look at the elements from that genre you wish to include in your game. Try to keep track of what you pull inspiration from, so you can return to it if you need future inspiration.
I'll be going into story analysis in another post. The short version is that every game has a story, so every designer should carefully consider the story elements of their game. Especially if the game has a theme (even if it doesn't tell a story).
After all of that research and analysis, it's time to sketch! I tend to sketch ideas for boards or tableaus just before starting to prototype. Set designers will sketch a number of different looks or scenes that occur during a play. I find that mentally or visually planning the visual/physical impact of a game design helps me make decisions about which directions to take the design in the early stages of the design process. These sketches should primarily be the basic shapes and functionality of the physical game.
Just like game designers, set designers iterate. After sketching, designers will usually build a white model of the set, similar to black-and-white prototypes. Then set designers will begin work on color renderings (two-dimensional color images of the set or set pieces) and a final model. Even then, there will be iterations based as the rehearsal process finalizes how the set must function. Eventually, someone else (hopefully) builds the set to look like the model and renderings. Sound familiar?
Here's the whole process again, but from a board game perspective:
-Come up with a concept for a game.
-Decide how you want the game to feel.
-Research mechanics and genre/theme.
-Consider the story your game tells.
-Sketch some rough ideas.
-Build a prototype.
I realize this list feels like it goes against the 'rush to prototype' mantra. But you could do everything on the list prior to prototyping in a few hours or less. Sure, you'll have to do more research later, but you don't have to spend too long on the other steps. Eventually, these steps can become so instinctual that you'll never be able to design any other way. At least, that's been my experience.
For this post, I relied heavily on Stage Lighting: Fundamentals and Applications, by Richard Dunham, found here, as my scenic design teacher didn't teach from a text book.
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