Talk:Video game design

message: Though I formatted them, I am uncomfortable with the links added by  69.47.133.65. They seem to be just marketing links. Though they do link to a game designer (game builder, really), no professionals would use such a tool. If no one objects, I'll remove it. If you'd like them kept in, please list justifications. Thanks. —Frecklefoot 14:38, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I had to remove the second one—it's slow and riddled with pop-ups. Please comment on the Game Maker link only now. —Frecklefoot 14:41, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: Yes, I was considering removing them myself, but I think the article should also consider amateur/hobbyist game design. Maybe a link to the rec.games.design FAQ instead? --Mrwojo 16:58, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: It all sounds good. I removed the link to Game Maker. --Mrwojo 00:37, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Marketing Links

message: I have a problem with this: "If the designer is not the sole designer on a game, they must exercise diplomacy when discussing features with other designers. Conflicting ideas can easily escalate into violence when passionate personalities are involved."
Are game designers as professionals more inclined toward violence than other creative collaborative professionals, say folks in the movie-making biz? I think not. This sentence seems superfluous to me, especially the reference to violence.
:I put that in in reference to my personal experience.  The arguments didn't escalate into actual brawls, but there were some pretty heated discussions, full of name-calling and yelling.  It doesn't always happen, however, especially if the Lead Designer is diplomatic.  So my wording may have been incorrect.  I'll take a shot at rewording it. —Frecklefoot 23:16, May 11, 2004 (UTC)
I somehow disagree. Of course, I depends on people. But in some studios, no arguing about game design is allowed - it's just rock solid document. Hopefully this doesn't happen so often. But, the final decision making allways should be on game designer's arms, because that's where responsibility is.
Analytik 15:32, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Game Designers and Fisticuffs

message: I changed it because creation is the job of the dev team not the designer.  Strategy is what the player creates though of course the designer may anticipate it.  I think my definition is more universal and accurate but i'm sure we can work something out.
I will probably start to expand this article with some key concepts and non-videogame design stuff.
--Tomheaton 11:15, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initial definition 

message: I started tidying up this section but stopped because I think it needs a rewrite.  At the moment it's very subjective and from an individual point of view.
*eg.  The main weapon in a game designer's arsenal is a word processor. With this application, the designer will hammer out the game design as it goes through its scores of revisions, growing from a few sparse pages to a mammoth tome, cross-referenced and indexed. Samples of artwork, graphs and tables make up some of the content, but most of the document is text which the designer generated.
It might be the main weapon - but it might not be.  The design doc may not go through scores of revisions.  It may not become a mammoth tome with cross-references - there are other ways of doing it.  Sometimes the designer is god and will hand down the finished design to be implemented.  Sometimes (as in the write up here, the designer is little more than notetaker and documenter to the whole team.)  These differences need to be written up if the article is to be objective.
There is also lots here about the character of game designer.  Surely that should maybe go into the game designer entry.  But again a lot of it is subjective.
--Tomheaton 11:14, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  game design process 

message: I was suprised not to find any mention of the term First Playable Demo.  Anyway I created the article, and inserted the appropriate reference to the term here.  Mathiastck 16:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Playable Demo 

message: OK an attempt at clarifying the foundemental concepts of game design.  Appologies if my formatting is not correct.Dndn1011 09:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This edit looks fine to me, except under "Interaction with other design disciplines", I don't know what you mean by "Production."  Aren't they all part of production?  Do you mean publication?  Please clarify.  Thanks! — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Great thanks.  What I mean by this is "production design".  That is, the design of the production process of making the game.  I'll have a think about how better to express this. Dndn1011 17:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes 

message: I would like to suggest changing the "The design process varies from company to company..." - right underneath the "Video/computer game design process" heading, to "The design process varies from game designer to game designer...", as computer games are not only designed by companies. - Miskaknapek 20:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, but the design process is often dictated by the company the designer works for.  They usually don't get to design the game any ol' way they want to (though the process can vary from one game to another even within one company, there is usually an established pattern that is supposed to be followed). — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a valid point that you make - in the context of working for game companies, game designers' are usually subject to their company's whims. However, what I was trying to suggest, was that there are game designers that work outside the constraints of companies. Some work alone, others in collaborations with others, for the sake of fun rather than profit. Perhaps our thoughts could be merged into a statement suggesting that game designers are subject to various constraints/direction, dependig on whether they work for a company/commercial gain, or not? - Miskaknapek 21:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True, that the process varies from company to company and from producer to produce, but perhaps one should describe somehow it is the entity that creates the game (single author, group of people, company)? Perhaps it would be important to mention the possibilities somehow? — Murrur 21:12, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, easy to fix... Dndn1011 21:44, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Companies don't design games

message: I will have a look in adding new concepts from Media Lab Helsinki Game Analysis Course Literature. Possibly even getting the person studying game character design to write a paragraph about game figure design and analysis. — Murrur 21:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine, I guess, as long as it doesn't include any original research. — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some new materials 

message: The see also list seems to cover very few and odd fields. 2 links on mud and 2 lists. this surely does not present game design entire field. maybe we should throw in some extra see also's?  
also, maybe there could be subsections covering specific fields which have articles, such as level design with redirect to actual articles? So that the game design would be covered more broadly. e.g. game designer article could be linked to "designers" section.
--Murrur 10:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not really play about with See Also references much, I agree it is a bit messy. The article should in my opinion be a top level view and not go into detail.  We can put in refereces as appropriate to other articles that go into areas in depth.  Some of the references are not at the right level of abstraction basically.  The link to MUDs probably does not belong here.  A link to Computer and video game genres would be appropriate however I believe.  I'm changing this now, although I have not vetted the article in detail.  It does appear to do what it says on the tin though. MUDs are referred to in that article.  Any other low level references should probably be similarly dealt with. Dndn1011 11:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Murrur, if you look down at the bottom of the article, the footer box contains links to other relevant articles, such as level design and other game development topics.  I added game designer to the "See also" list since it seems particularly relevant, even though it is already linked to in the article.  I removed list of video game designers, since this article is not about designers, but just design (and the list is linked to in the game designer article). HTH — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also -list  and subsections 

message: Which one is usually used to make video games. I always wondered :68.234.4.254 22:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This question would probably be better here or here, but it is PC by far, normally for the latest version of Windows.  I could also tell you why, but you didn't ask that. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 22:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Macs or PCs 

message: OK I see where you are coming from... the article does not mention iteration enough, it is an oversight on my part because iteration in design and development comes so naturally to my thoughts on the subject.  In fact the two models I describe can operate with varying degrees of iteration.  In reality iteration always exists, it is just a question of the scope of that iteration.  It is not uncommon to have projects developed through a waterfall model iterated late in development ("Oh they want us to make it a zombie and werewolves game now?  We are supposed to be going Beta next week!").  Prototype phases imply tight flexible and inexpensive iteration at the design phase before bigger investment is required.  It is however true that prototyping can be treated as part of a waterfall model (that is with no iteration), in which case I would argue the value of prototyping is greatly diminished (perhaps the infamous "vertical slice").  I'm not happy with the current text, but will leave it in for now as a reminder while I let it stew for a bit in my mind. Dndn1011 09:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Waterfall 

message: who wrote this article?    
150.131.81.102 23:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Many different editors.  I started it, long ago.  It's gone downhill since then, see below. — Frecklefoot | Talk 11:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: new subject

message: I started this article long ago.  Back then, after a few thoughtful edits, I thought it was pretty good.  It was approachable and just deep enough to give the casual reader an introductory understanding of game design.  Since then, however, scores of editors have added their own spin on the whole topic and, unfortunately, turned the article into a pile of mush, with tons of opinion and now it totally lacks any sense of coherence.  The last decent version of the article, in my opinion, is this one.  After that, it all started going downhill.
I don't know if it can be salvaged at this point.  But as of now, I absolve myself of any claim of authorship on this article.
I don't dislike the wiki process.  I love it.  But this is one of the few cases where it has totally and utterly failed.  I crafted a thoughtful and decent article.  Usually other editors come in and enhance the basic framework, sometimes incredibly expanding it into a real work of art.  But in this case it has totally and utterly failed.  Try to salvage it if you like. But be prepared for others to step in and tear down your work. — Frecklefoot | Talk 11:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I could have sworn that you approved the contributions I made.  We talked about them at the time.  Now, you want to revert back to the article you basically wrote.  I don't understand.  Dndn1011 21:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Tell you what, I'll salvage it for you.... I mean you have basically rubbished my entire contribution.  I have been designing video games for nearly 30 years, who am I to argue with you.  Hurray for the wikipedia process! Dndn1011 21:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Please do.  Actually, I think the article started going downhill when the "Key concepts" section was added.  This isn't a textbook!  Like I said, this article needs some TLC. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 17:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Article trashed

message: I suggest you write about this:
Mark Overmars's Article on Focus
It isn't origional work (except for Mark's addition of a forth element, making it a dimond instead of the traditional focus triangle).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piepeople (talk • contribs) 22:02, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Focus Diamond 

message: I found this very old article on game design from CRASH magazine. It might be useful for historical reasons. SharkD (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Very old article

message: Designing board games, interactive books, and all that good stuff qualifies as game design and possibly more so than videogame design. Not mentioning them is the worst kind of bias. YVNP (talk) 07:12, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  game design not just for computer games 

message: I saw a version of the article authored by Swentibold.  I had to revert it.  It wasn't a proper Wikipedia article and contained a whole bunch of opinions.  While there were some references, they weren't cited inline so it was impossible to tell what information came from which source.  When proposing something like an entire re-write of an article, it's sometimes best to discuss it first, put up a draft and then replace the original when a consensus has been reached.  Wikipedia lets you do what you like, but wholesale rewrites of large articles are sometimes best done as a community first. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 16:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently Swentibold made that material into a separate article titled Game Design Brief.  That article looks like it should be merged into this one, or else simply deleted -- there's a lot of overlap. See below.Agathman (talk) 03:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Swentibold rewrite

message: It has been proposed that the Game Design Brief page be merged into this one.  That page reads rather oddly, but may have content that would augment this page.  In any case, there appears to be a lot of overlap.  Agathman (talk) 03:55, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I vote to just delete that article and be done with it.  I couldn't read more than a sentence or two without wincing.  It's a personal essay, not a Wikipedia article. It doesn't contain anything worth merging over. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 18:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

text: It looks like the vote was to keep the Game Design Brief article (and, yes, it does use that capitalization), for reasons I can't even begin to understand.  I did some copyediting of it, but I still can't see any worth in it all.  I don't see how it can help this article at all, except maybe to say: "there are many methodologies to designing games.  Trying to capture them all is beyond the scope of Wikipedia." — Frecklefσσt | Talk 14:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be time for a second deletion discussion on this. Nothing's happened with this article, save for your copyediting, which is a good effort, but as you said, the article itself is of very little worth. The last AFD was no consensus, which I guess I can see, since the discussion seemed evenly divided. My main point all along was that it is original research and unencyclopedic, which is still true. freshacconci talktalk 14:58, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Well, if you nominate it for deletion, I'll support it. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 18:04, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merging [[Game Design Brief]]

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Game development which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RM bot 19:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: I think it would be nice if the article provided a few examples of game designers that stand out, mentioning, besides games they are famous for, how they ended up as game designers, and also a few more general examples of common paths leading to reaching that position. I would expect a significant percentage of people come to this article to get more information on becoming game designers themselves. --TiagoTiago (talk) 04:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it would be worthwhile. Most famous game designers started out that way (Sid Meier, Will Wright) while they were also doing all the game programming or another function. Most people who enter the game industry want to design a game someday, and almost any "entry level" position can lead to the coveted position of game designer. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 05:28, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Career paths often leading to a game designer position? 

message: "Today, it is rare to find a video or computer game where the principal programmer is also the principal designer, except in the case of casual games"
This is an absolutely ridiculous statement (and there's no citation), considering how many games exist as the result of a single person's efforts.
The most well-known example might be Minecraft. While the team is larger now, it was created by a single person initially and through much of its development. There are many, many more examples, however. Too many to list.
Droqen (talk) 09:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed the sentence. It's not completed false, it's just only applicable to AAA titles. It already mentioned casual games as exception but didn't mention indie games. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incredibly False Information Exists. 

message: Another important part of game development is story board development.The basic concept of story board is to developed the steps in the drawing elements.Just pick any cartoon books you can get idea a story goes with “quote” and image says then movement of the story.The same way that build.Means what will be in the first level.Which character will introduced,other object etc etc.To save time you can make the storyboard short or in the text lineup.As game is a software so based on that the algorithm developed.Here that the interaction and simply a graphical representation so that required to stated in the storyboard.Now a days most of the game developer not developed a complete story board which are specially developed in a cartoon film.Concept is more than important rather than Story board.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.215.149.31 (talk) 19:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: That website is a promotional blog and not a reliable source, not to mention lack of editorial oversight. There are many ways one can approach story design, story board being just one of them.  —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Story board 

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
*Support WP:PRECISE lacks precision, this is about videogames, not boardgames, etc -- 70.24.250.235 (talk) 06:41, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I think an article on "game design" apart from video game design would be nice, it's been like 5 years or more since this need was first raised and no one has stepped up to write the article. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 15:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: I'd edit it but I'd probably get it wrong. It is quoting The Study of Games but it's mixing it up with Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmermann https://books.google.com.au/books?id=UM-xyczrZuQC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=%22A+game+designer+is+a+particular+kind+of+designer,+much+like+a+graphic+designer,+industrial+designer,+or+architect.+A+game+designer+is+not+necessarily%22&source=bl&ots=2AIGsY6E_o&sig=5zopoJuyh3mKDeqkI_JNQIPvDpE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5zYyDjPLMAhUk56YKHY8kB68Q6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=%22A%20game%20designer%20is%20a%20particular%20kind%20of%20designer%2C%20much%20like%20a%20graphic%20designer%2C%20industrial%20designer%2C%20or%20architect.%20A%20game%20designer%20is%20not%20necessarily%22&f=false
116.212.215.74 (talk) 06:41, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Study of Games quote is only partially from that book 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Zapatero 138.118.200.20 (talk) 05:31, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kilómetros