Ready Player One: Golden Rules and Tips for Game Design
These tips can also be applied to other aspects of your life.
A year ago, I completed an online course to learn how to design a board game. I always loved playing board games and I cannot wait until my children are ready to play more games other than Jenga.
For someone like myself who is not part of the gaming industry — what resonated with me about the course are the similarities to business practices, particularly in the world of startups.
For example, game designers talk about the importance of a theme, components, mechanisms and player experience, as well as the relevance of prototyping and testing. It gave me some insights into project team dynamics and how to launch a product.
Golden Rules and Tips
Here are some golden rules and tips I have learned from the course. Also, I noticed that some of them are relevant in other areas of life and business. You might recognise some for yourself:
- Before you start, think about the goal of the game. For example, the experience the user should have or feel when playing it.
- Always test early with users that have never played it before.
- Observe, observe, and observe and listen (don’t talk) when a player is testing it.
- Use symbols rather than words.
- Pick your audience and target group and make it as dedicated as possible for that audience.
- A good game is easy to understand with simple rules. Don’t add unnecessary complexity to the game.
- Finally, even if it feels hard, accept that the player is never wrong.
Gamification Techniques
Granted, the rules and tips mentioned above are arguably not new concepts. Gamification techniques have been used a lot in business to help tackle complex topics or challenges.
A great example is the 2030 SDG’s (Sustainable Development Goals) Game. It’s a multiplayer game, in-person as well as online, that helps players to observe and understand the environmental challenges we might face in the year 2030.
I’m Creating A Game
In light of taking this game design course, my admiration and respect for game designers has increased dramatically. The amount of time and passion that goes into prototyping, testing and development before a game is actually ready to launch is huge.
By the way, the open online course (MOOC) is called Introduction to Game Design and hosted by MIT Open Learning via edX. The instructors Eric Klopfer, Philip Tan and Sara Verrilli have inspired me to create my own game. I have shared the prototype in my article on Medium for the first time.
As part of the creation process, I have asked around about board games, and it seems some childhood favourites are Monopoly, Ticket to Ride, and Catan.
Which one is your favourite board game and why?
Special thanks to Tremis Skeete, Executive Editor at Product Coalition for the valuable input which contributed to the editing of this article.
