Character Driven Game Design

Game and Gameplay
Design
First, I look at high-level game design approaches that can complement
the design approach that is proposed in this thesis. After that, I review a
pervasive premise of design approach, immersion-driven game design,
for the character-based games and show some limits that the premise
of immersion centricity introduces. Then I proceed to examine the proposals
for character design for games. I conclude this chapter by arguing
that there is a need to look for methods to bridge character design
with gameplay design.
Game Design Approaches
Game design and development flow can be described roughly as follows:
1. Brainstorming a game idea. The starting point can be based on
game play (e.g., race game), license (e.g., James Bond), or technology
(e.g., the design team have a certain game engine available,
or the target platform is specific).
2. Creating the focus, i.e., describing the core of the game briefly.
3. Fleshing out the design (e.g., by writing a design document).
4. Creating a playable prototype. This can mean a physical prototype
in early phases of the design or a software prototype
consisting of merely a single gameplay feature up to a fully
playable level or game.
5. Play testing the prototype.
6. Production. (Davies, 2007; Fullerton et al., 2004; Rollings,
Adams, 2003; Rouse, 2005)
This process can be iterative in various ways. 1 Design processes may
differ, for example, due to the approval process of a publisher (e.g.,
Davies, 2007). Notably, the core idea of my character-driven game design
approach can be integrated with different variations of the design
process.
The design process is considered to consist of gameplay design and
story design (Davies, 2007; Fullerton et al., 2004; Rollings, Adams, 2003;
Rouse, 2005), in the areas in which this work belongs. 2 The focus of the
character-driven game design approach is especially in steps 2 and 3.
Gameplay design is about designing the game system. According to
Järvinen (2008) the game system consists of the following parts:
1 An alternative
for the presented
process is agile
game development
methods. In agile
game development
(see, e.g., McGuire,
2006) the process
changes and there
is no separate
production phase,
but each iteration
contributes towards
the final product.
2 Depending on
the writer, different
subareas are
identified. Davies
(Davies, 2007) and
Rouse (Rouse, 2005)
discuss also, for example,
level design
and AI design.