Different terms for game design

[Servo]

This may be an extremely newbish question but we've already established that I'm a newb so here goes:

Game design is a loaded word, like game mechanics or game systems. But what is game design exactly? Is there an approximate term that most can agree on?

More specifically, I hear these phrases thrown around but I'm not sure what the differences are: encounter design, quest design, area design, world design... there are probably more.

If there's already a thread about this that I haven't been able to find and someone could just point me to it, that would be fine. Or we could rehash the discussion.

 

[Servo]

I'll take a stab at answering my own question and then someone else can correct me.

Encounter design: Comes from PnP games, where a single session usually contains one main quest with several battles. Each battle is an encounter, and the DM has to carefully design the encounters to be challenging, interesting, but ultimately possible for the party to overcome. Of the little DnD I've played, combat is less than half of the game so it makes sense to describe it this way.

Quest design: I already said a single PnP session usually contains one main quest with several battles. The design part of that is figuring out how to set up the quest, how to resolve it, how to reward the players, and overall make it a fun, worthwhile session. CRPGs tend to have lots of quests, but in PnP I don't think the term is used very often.

Area design: The process of placing NPCs with their associated quests in an area like a town or dungeon or whatever. Again, doesn't really apply outside of video games. A town in a CRPG will often be a hub of sorts, with shops to sell loot and what not. So when people say a game has good area design I guess they mean there are towns with lots of NPC quest givers in them and people who will buy your phat loot.

World design: I think this is creating the backstory, lore, setting, and stuff like that for a campaign, where a campaign is a series of quests or sessions that tie together somehow. If I am correct, then I would prefer to call this "world crafting" because that suggests more the writing and creation aspect to me.

System design: Is this a thing that people say? If it is, I would think it refers to creating the rules for a game: combat rules, experience/leveling system, possibly attributes/skills - the latter might be called a character system. I could also be making this up. It sounds good to me.

Am I on the right track here?

 

[Jaesun]

Have you ever played a PnP session before Servo?

 

[Servo]

Have you ever played a PnP session before Servo?

Of the little DnD I've played

Did I put this in the wrong forum or something?

Whatever. Let's just say no I haven't.

 

[Hormalakh]

most of this stuff isn't strictly for PnP. obsidian's kickstarter does a good job through the updates of explaining some of this. also google and wiki are your friends.

 

[Servo]

Okay, but I was hoping for a discussion. Jaesun gave me the impression I was way off so it would be cool if someone could clarify. What else is the point of a forum?

Edit: Oops, I did say

If there's already a thread about this that I haven't been able to find and someone could just point me to it, that would be fine.

That would still be fine, since I still haven't been able to find it.

Edit 2: There's also "art design," the meaning of which is obvious and probably falls under "world design" (assuming I know what that means). And "system design" should probably be "system/mechanics design" (assuming they are the same). Also I just found a reference to "gameplay design" which could mean anything, or it could mean what the player actually does during the game.

 

[Servo]

Found Principles of Game Design series and nominated for inclusion in Project Monkey. But that thread only mentions different design terminology whereas I'm more interested in a definitive discussion on the matter.

To summarize what I've found so far, different aspects of game design (which Captain Shrek refers to as "functional design") include:

• Encounter design
• Quest design
• Area design
• World design
  • Art design
  • Story design (including setting, characters, lore, etc.)
• System/mechanics design
  • Combat design
  • Character progression design
  • "Gameplay" design

Finally, games are evaluated by their execution separately from their design! Baffling. But that's probably a different discussion.

 

[Zed]

Some projects have Item designers and Monster/enemy designers, while others would probably put it under some umbrella term like "Asset/prefab design". The bigger the team and project, the more detailed the design roles usually are.

Game design, to me, is a rather holistic term incorporating all aspects of game development (writing, art, code). Design documents like rulesets and lore, illustrations like story-boards, or simple prototypes in code are all examples of designing, I think.

 

[Telengard]

Encounter - a meeting with anything, good, bad or indifferent
Quest - a job, often a mini adventure tacked onto the overall goal, such as "Find My Lost Ring" or "Deliver This Package For Me (Because I Can't Be Arsed To Walk Over And Do It Myself), tacked onto the main goal so that players with low attention span feel a constant sense of progression and success when solving that horde of mini-jobs. But, the overall goal is also a quest. Deal with it. -All events, C&C, and rewards within the quest are a part of the quest design package.
Area - a location (be it city, wilderness, or dungeon), which is something that is more difficult to pinpoint in a freeflow world. But in the old days, it is a single map, including all layout of places, people, events, walls, landmarks, and secrets within it, but also including how well-balanced these things are
World - landmasses, countries, cultures, history, and important personages

Most people don't "see" design elements, but they do "feel" them. If it was done well, they like the game. If it was done poorly, they don't. For that reason, these things are usually only touched on cursorily by reviewers and designers when talking about the game - unless they are talking to a codexer or something - because most people don't care about such details, and only want to know if the game's exciting or not.

 

[Abelian]

To me, game design represents the non-technical aspect of game development, which focuses on the game's vision. The plot, setting, character system, UI design, and combat mechanics all play part into it. Game designer are like systems architects, in that they are more concerned with game concepts rather than their implementation (but that doesn't mean they can't get involved in the nitty-gritty details of development).

 

[J1M]

These terms have no formal definition because the field has not been standardized. This is unlikely to happen because similar to music, individuals and small groups can create finished product in isolation.

 

[JMab]

The "Bad Game Designer - No Twinkie!" database (and the rest of Ernest Adams' site) is a great resources for learning about game design:

http://www.designersnotebook.com/Design_Resources/No_Twinkie_Database/no_twinkie_database.htm

I'm reading his book "Fundamentals of Game Design, 2nd Edition" at the moment:

http://www.designersnotebook.com/Books/Fundamentals2e/fundamentals2e.htm

It's a bit dry, but he does talk about the different types of game design listed in this thread.

He also has a cheap e-book specifically about designing CRPGs:

http://www.peachpit.com/store/fundamentals-of-role-playing-game-design-9780133811926

I haven't checked it out yet, but might when I've finished Fundamentals...

 

[Jaesun]

Okay, but I was hoping for a discussion. Jaesun gave me the impression I was way off so it would be cool if someone could clarify. What else is the point of a forum?

No. I was just curious if you were familiar with PnP session (of which I missed in your second post). Carry on.

 

[Servo]

These terms have no formal definition because the field has not been standardized.

I feel it would be helpful if we could come to some sort of agreement on what these things mean, so we know what each other is talking about when one of us says "Fallout had the best world design but the worst systems design" and can have semi-intelligent discussions that aren't just buzzwords.

No. I was just curious if you were familiar with PnP session (of which I missed in your second post). Carry on.

My bad. I assumed you asked with a sarcastic tone

 

[set]

In the cotext of video games, game designers broadly, from my understanding anyway:

Draw up implementation specifications, likely with the help of programmers and producers. These specifications are like 'blueprints' for the game - what mechanics need to be built and why and maybe how (to a degree).

Game designers, if a team has multiples, may also have different jobs after a general spec has been created - probably going into more detail and creatnig more specialized specs, like what are the number of properties items can have in an RPG, what stats monsters have and how they work, et cetera

I don't think game designers are generally level designers. I think that's something that's been split off by the industry, environmental artists tend to draw up a level. Though, a game designer might suggest a layout and provide the initial restrictions to an environmental artist (like, "we don't have doors in our game, we have no door objects, so don't design any levels that use them").

Finally, game designers generally are concerned with any balance work of the game once all features have been implemented, tweaking build configurations to get the numbers right before or after a product has launched.

Thus, game design to me is someone who is technically and communicatively skilled (they know how to communicate and work with artists and programmers) and may have some mathematical or programming background that allows them to draw up blueprints for various game features that others are to follow when production begins.

In an indie game, game designers are usually just some part of the team, there's no one person that does it.

I don't think it's something that can be easily narrowly defined, as it's not like the game industry is this homogenized highly rigorous thing. There's no proper degree for game design yet, probably, and most game designers have broad backgrounds from what I understand, so it's not simple that can be naturally agreed upon. But I think my above definition covers the idea pretty well? Game design is the coordination of programming, art, story and mechanics. Game design is the end result anyway, you produce a "game" which is the thing that gets sold at the end of the pipe.

When someone's talking about the "world design of Fallout" I think you need to clarify with that poster as that's something that encompasses more than just a game designer, but the whole team. A game designer might lay the ground rules for building the world, but how it's all implemented will be based on a given member of the team.

 

[J1M]

These terms have no formal definition because the field has not been standardized. This is unlikely to happen because similar to music, individuals and small groups can create finished product in isolation.

I feel it would be helpful if we could come to some sort of agreement on what these things mean, so we know what each other is talking about when one of us says "Fallout had the best world design but the worst systems design" and can have semi-intelligent discussions that aren't just buzzwords.

The part of my post that you removed addressed this. So much for a semi-intelligent discussion...

 

[Servo]

Sorry, I don't see how other people working in isolation prohibits us from forming a consensus. Plus, there are plenty of standards one may refer to when critically evaluating music. So what you said was just confusing.

 

[tuluse]

I think you're confusing broad terms with undefined terms. A game designer is someone who designs games. That's all there is too it. There is a lot of aspects of games to design an a person might specialize in one more or more. Especially with teams as large as they are now.

If you want to find a systems designer, look at Josh Sawyer. That's the main part of what he does.

World "design" and quest "design" would be more of a narrative work though than design work. I guess a quest would be both. but world design is clearly narrative work, not design work.

 

[Servo]

Does nobody else find it jarring when someone says X game had great "quest design?" Or bad "area design?" Nobody knows what they're talking about but it's cool I guess?

 

[J1M]

Does nobody else find it jarring when someone says X game had great "quest design?" Or bad "area design?" Nobody knows what they're talking about but it's cool I guess?

"The quests were fun."
"The areas were interesting."

Replace great with excellent and it means they saw something new or coherent.

 

[Cosmic Misogynerd]

Servo, why don't you post with your Captain Shrek account?

 

[hiver]

Does nobody else find it jarring when someone says X game had great "quest design?" Or bad "area design?" Nobody knows what they're talking about but it's cool I guess?

I know exactly what they mean by that, whatcha talkin abut?

As for main question, you are doing it upside down.

World design should be the first, as it contains all the other systems within itself and cannot exist without them. Its the overall idea including lore, the main story and setting specifics - which are represented through mechanics, systems and those lesser specific parts.

Since it is usually more or less separated into specific Areas (even in case of sanbox games) - you have area design, where each area is more or less different than others. Cities, villages, towns, taverns, forests, caves, dungeons etc. Together they form the "World".

But since areas alone is not all the world has... thats where the lore and other specific come in.
Quest are small(er), often self contained (sometimes not since they influence other quests or overall story, characters, etc) stories. In form of missions, problems and tasks you have to perform and find solutions for.
Encounter design is any active part of the quests, usually it is combat oriented since most games are combat heavy but it also contains talking - diplomacy and options other then straight violence and annihilation of enemies as the solution.

And so on...


Frankly im not even sure why are you asking since all of these are pretty self explanatory.

Seems to me youre just one of these people that cannot accept something isnt "defined" in some strict precise ways (aspergers maybe? - wouldnt be the first, nothing to be ashamed off, especially around here) - which in this case cannot be, since all these parts are inter dependent with each other.

Which is the beauty of games as a specific medium.