Game Design - A Better Understanding

I've made a conscious effort to put the hours into the project the last few days. If you read my first post on the subject of game design, Game Design - a structured start, you would know I was working my through the The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses by Jesse Schell. What an eye opener!! Going into this project I didn't appreciate the complexities involved in game design and what I would need to consider. Having made it out the other side I am more inspired and focused than I was when I started the book.

For you reference here are the remaining topics / lenses that the book covered:

• Lens #34: The Lens of Skill vs. Chance
• Lens #35: The Lens if Head and Hands
• Lens #36: The Lens of Competition
• Lens #37: The Lens of Cooperation
• Lens #38: The Lens of Competition vs. Cooperation
• Lens #39: The Lens of Time
• Lens #40: The Lens of Reward
• Lens #41: The Lens of Punishment
• Lens #42: The Lens of Simplicity/Complexity
• Lens #43: The Lens of Elegance
• Lens #44: The Lens of Character
• Lens #45: The Lens of Imagination
• Lens #46: The Lens of Economy
• Lens #47: The Lens of Balance
• Lens #48: The Lens of Accessibility
• Lens #49: The Lens of Visible Progress
• Lens #50: The Lens of Parallelism
• Lens #51: The Lens of the Pyramid
• Lens #52: The Lens of the Puzzle
• Lens #53: The Lens of Control
• Lens #54: The Lens of Physical Interface
• Lens #55: The Lens of Virtual Interface
• Lens #56: The Lens of Transparency
• Lens #57: The Lens of Feedback
• Lens #58: The Lens of Juiciness
• Lens #59: The Lens of Channels and Dimensions
• Lens #60: The Lens of Modes
• Lens #61: The Lens of the Interest Curve
• Lens #62: The Lens of Inherent Interest
• Lens #63: The Lens of Beauty
• Lens #64: The Lens of Projection
• Lens #65: The Lens of the Story Machine
• Lens #66: The Lens of the Obstacle
• Lens #67: The Lens of Simplicity and Transcendence
• Lens #68: The Lens of the Hero’s Journey
• Lens #69: The Lens of the Weirdest Thing
• Lens #70: The Lens of Story
• Lens #71: The Lens of Freedom
• Lens #72: The Lens of Indirect Control
• Lens #73: The Lens of Collusion
• Lens #74: The Lens of the World
• Lens #75: The Lens of the Avatar
• Lens #76: The Lens of Character Function
• Lens #77: The Lens of Character Traits
• Lens #78: The Lens of the Interpersonal Circumplex
• Lens #79: The Lens of the Character Web
• Lens #80: The Lens of Status
• Lens #81: The Lens of Character Transformation
• Lens #82: The Lens of Inner Contradiction
• Lens #83: The Lens of The Nameless Quality
• Lens #84: The Lens of Friendship
• Lens #85: The Lens of Expression
• Lens #86: The Lens of Community
• Lens #87: The Lens of Griefing
• Lens #88: The Lens of Love
• Lens #89: The Lens of the Team
• Lens #90:The Lens of Documentation
• Lens #91: The Lens of Playtesting
• Lens #92: The Lens of Technology
• Lens #93:The Lens of the Crystal Ball
• Lens #94: The Lens of the Client
• Lens #95:The Lens of the Pitch
• Lens #96:The Lens of Profit
• Lens #97: The Lens of Transformation
• Lens #98: The Lens of Responsibility
• Lens #99: The Lens of the Raven
• Lens #100: The Lens of Your Secret Purpose

This book has given me a real dip into a lot of areas that I may never had considered. That said it doesn't specifically tell you what you need to know but more question what you have done. Its not a book of ideas, you need to bring those but what it should do is cement those into something better.

Again, if you recall from the previous blog I mentioned I was to create a check list document to aid me and funny enough one of the topics of this book was that there isn't such a thing as a master document. My intention is to evolve my design document over the next couple of weeks and months as I start developing and prototyping. As the book drums home a lot the art of design and game development is one of the loop of iteration to ensure that issues or challenges are ironed out or overcome in small manageable packages.

Onwards and upawards!