Practical uses for applying this framework — A framework for designing games inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s Harvard lecture series The Unanswered Question and transformational grammar. Bernstein is a conductor, composer, and much more, whose most famous work is songwriting for West Side Story. Part 1: Game (Surface Structure) Part 2: Attributes Part 3: Mechanics Part 4: Prose (Deep Structure) Part 5…

How to create variety and force creativity in game mechanics — A framework for designing games inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s Harvard lecture series The Unanswered Question and transformational grammar. Bernstein is a conductor, composer, and much more, whose most famous work is songwriting for West Side Story. Part 1: Game (Surface Structure) Part 2: Attributes Part 3: Mechanics Part 4: Prose (Deep Structure) Part 5…

How to discover patterns in game design and apply them — A framework for designing games inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s Harvard lecture series The Unanswered Question and transformational grammar. Bernstein is a conductor, composer, and much more, whose most famous work is songwriting for West Side Story. Part 1: Game (Surface Structure) Part 2: Attributes Part 3: Mechanics Part 4: Prose (Deep Structure) Part 5…

The basic elements from which all mechanics are built — A framework for designing games inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s Harvard lecture series The Unanswered Question and transformational grammar. Bernstein is a conductor, composer, and much more, whose most famous work is songwriting for West Side Story. Part 1: Game (Surface Structure) Part 2: Attributes Part 3: Mechanics Part 4: Prose (Deep Structure) Part 5…

‘Why I Love’ is a series of lessons I’ve learned from my favorite game mechanics. — In filmmaking, diegesis refers to the things that exist within the world of the movie. Things like the characters, the props, and the sound effects are diegetic. This is unlike the orchestral BGM or the title card which are both non-diegetic, meaning they exist within the movie but not within…

A technical framework for understanding game mechanics in systems. — As the subtitle states, this is a framework for a technical understanding of game mechanics in systems — not so much a creative one. I’ve been developing it while working on design documents for various projects, and I feel like it might be useful other designers out there. Its purpose…

‘Why I Love’ is a series of lessons I’ve learned from my favorite game mechanics. — I wanted to skip my university’s commencement. I probably would have if my parents weren’t going. I couldn’t help but think that the whole process was completely unnecessary. Sitting outside, in the sun for 3 hours for your name to be said aloud wasn’t really how I wanted to spend…

‘Why I Love’ is a series of lessons I’ve learned from my favorite game mechanics. — Video game doors rarely have more than two states: open or shut, locked or unlocked. Walk up to a door in a game, and it is likely that it’ll either open automatically or swing completely open. Very rarely could you control how open or shut the door was. In the…

‘Why I Love’ is a series of lessons I’ve learned from my favorite game mechanics. — Let’s say we’ve bought this new game called Dark Souls. We’ve heard great things about it from our friends. It’s got an awesome world and cool monsters. We get to level-up our character however we want, explore wherever we want, and use whatever weapons and armor we want. But when…