Games GDD

Image from Pixabay

This weeks reading focuses on the smaller more look over aspects of game design, the physical presentation, especially in board and card games. These are not concrete "rules" for designing games merely suggestions as this article says. Though many of these suggestions sound like common knowledge for a board game some games look over these small details.

First we must focus on the components of the games such as the tiles, cards and the board. Each tile should be its own distinct colour and should be distinguishable from one another so that people know which piece is theirs as many people suffer from some form of colour blindness. As for the board part of the game if there are spaces for the player to put their tiles on then they should be bigger than the tiles themselves to avoid the pieces being disturbed too badly if there's more than one tile on a space. In the same vein the starting tile should be clearly marked and printed in a different colour.

When it comes to the box and packaging of the game the design can be very important because it gives you the first impression of the game inside therefore a good design can really sell the game. The name of the game must be distinct and eye catching and it should be printed on the side of the box as well as the front. The sides of the box should be printed vertically and horizontally so that the boxes can be displayed both ways on a shelf and still be legible, this would greatly help shop owners.

The theme of your game should work with the rules that you create for the game and the rules for said game should be clear and concise. Don't write intentionally vague rules that the player are meant to interpret for themselves, if the player wanted to make up their own rules they would just make their own game. The rules you do create should be blind tested on people who haven't had the game explained to them by the designer and only have the rules to go on to see if the they answer the fundamental questions. The rules of any game should answer the most important questions about the game.

The things that usually get overlooked when making a game are the small things that may seem unimportant but are actually some of the most important things. One should always test their game with others.