Prior to taking this class, I never stopped to think about the extensive process of designing games. I, as a player, have only ever interfaced with the end product of a game. While I did have an appreciation for the technical aspects, I never took time to appreciate the amount of effort that goes into ideation, modeling, note taking, testing, and ethical reasoning, all of which I have since learned are necessary to create a truly fun game. This realization first struck me during week 2 of the quarter, when we started learning about MDA. Before this, I understood what fun meant to me, but didn’t understand how that fun is created. In particular, knowing how to accurately categorize a game’s aesthetic experience has helped me as a designer understand how to create a game that is consistent with my intent. Additionally, my previous understanding of effective prototyping was very off. For example, I undervalued the importance of idea validation. In the past, I have gotten away with skipping this step when designing games in platforms like Scratch, because my focus was personal satisfaction rather than user experience. Had I gone into P1 or P2 without idea validation in mind, I likely would have advocated for fully fleshing out an initial idea rather than taking time to confirm that the idea is fun.
Working through P1 ended up being very smooth. Because I was in a small team with two other people, we were quick to achieve consensus and made progress early. One of my most important takeaways from that project was that all rules and onboarding should be descriptive, but concise enough so that the player doesn’t become confused or uninterested. Additionally, that process taught me how testing can expose disconnects with designer intent. Our team envisioned a tense, slightly chaotic game, but some of our play tests revealed that players often felt stressed. P2 was a beast. While not nearly as smooth as P1, it was such a rewarding experience. As a team of five, it often took a while to reach consensus, but this gave us a lot of time to understand each other’s goals and needs, which actually helped us grow closer as a team. Having a mixture of different skills ended up being extremely beneficial, especially since significant amounts of both art and code were needed to make our idea work. While it took a while for us to find our momentum, these last few weeks yielded hard work and cooperation from everyone, and after successfully completing the game, we were able to cherish our victory with a team meal. Watching as our idea came to life was definitely my favorite experience in this class.
Looking ahead, I know that I will carry the skills I learned from this class into future projects, both academic and personal. Whether I’m designing a full game or just prototyping an idea, I’ll be more thoughtful of the user experience from the start. I now understand that the design process for games should stem from more than just instinct alone. It should be an ongoing process of deliberate testing, feedback, iteration, and team bonding. As I grow as a designer, I am excited to keep exploring the connection between design and play.
The only reason to make a game is that user experience. I’m so glad you’ve learned to love that art, creating fun! Thanks for being part of the class.