Way too often, game designers get tangled in the trap-like mess that is attempting to define what a game is. These discussions are often spun into a philosophical or semantic debates and sometimes even come down to an outright matter of personal preference.

What concerns me most is not that these discussions are often circular (not taking to mean that nothing can be learned from them) but they usually forsake the most fundamental aspect of games; something that all games (and even some non-game experiences) share:  All games are meant to be engaging.

“Engaging?” – you might ask – “I thought the goal of games was to provide fun…”

This confusion is commonly spawned from the lack of clarity when tossing the terms “fun” and “engagement” around and so, my goal here will be to attempt to define and contrast both.

You see, engagement takes place when you are able to tap into one or more essential human traits (which in MMDA we define as Aesthetics) and, through them, hook the player to the experience you are creating. These traits might be the desire to put one’s skills to the test, to discover new and exciting possibilities or even the desire to express oneself creatively.

When we listen to a song or watch a movie that makes us cry, we don’t think of ourselves as having fun at that moment, even thought we are still extremely engaged by that experience. When we use the word “fun” that usually carries a frivolous and light-hearted connotation with it, which is unable to include the full spectrum of what engagement is. Fun is a way that games traditionally use to engage the players but it is not the only one and, as veteran game designers, we should be aware and familiar with other parts of the engagement spectrum to empower ourselves with more tools.

Engagement is the pure design metric by which you can assess a game’s success or failure. Through the lens of engagement you can determine whether that feature you’re planning on adding next will actually improve your game or not. 

We have always, perhaps intuitively, known how to measure engagement. When you experience something engaging you tend to interact with it for longer periods of time, share the excitement it brings to you with others and come back to it time and time again.

Ultimately, our job as game designers is to craft an experience that will deeply engage our players and that should be our number one consideration when making any decision.

For my first topic I think it would be best appropriate to outline where I think Game Design is at in a historical context. I'll be referring to a paper that I wrote at DigiPen under professor Benjamin Ellinger's supervision which contributed to the creation of the MMDA framework (which I'll certainly be talking more about in future posts). So without further ado, let's get started.

Games and humanity

Games have been accompanying mankind for many millennia. In fact, for as long as there are records of human activity on the planet, there have also been records of ludic activities. 
However, it was not until later that we would come to create what we consider today as being a "game", and while the distinction is often semantic and somewhat unimportant, it alludes to the increasing consideration we have grown to dedicate to game-making.
Much like other forms of art and sciences, game design and the way it is conducted have too changed over centuries, today I'd like to share three major period distinctions that help me better contextualize where we're at today.

First Era: game design as evolution

The first era begins with the first historical record of what can be considered as game, The Royal Game of Ur and Senet being major contestants to that title. During this period games had no particular discernible creator, like songs and stories of their time they were part of the cultural reality of the society in which they emerged. Because of that, any given game could exist in several different forms and rules, varying by region and who played them, much like common stories and fables. In this era, games were not so much designed, as they were "evolved" by the same people that played them. This process led to small changes at a time, reflecting and serving the audience that engaged with them.

Second Era: game design as alchemy

The beginning of the second era is marked by the rise of traditional game designers, around the Victorian Era (1800s), starting with people that first made a living out of game-making. In this era, game design advancements are achieved through experimentation and sharing notes with other designers. Just as ancient alchemists wrote down formulas on what ingredients to combine, game designers too created their own rules of thumb and guiding principles to their praxis. This era infused games with wide innovation, helping to distinguish markets and audiences as well as provide standards to play experiences. 

The major issues with this practice of design, however lies on its faulty nature. Like with alchemy, findings and beliefs of a given designer were deeply colored by personal opinion and the audience being serviced, rendering its findings often not applicable when put to use on a different context. Another drawback to this approach is the lack of common jargon designers could use when referring to elements of play to better refine their craft.

Third Era: game design as discipline

This puts us to today, at the tipping point between the second and third era of design. While a lot of advancements are still achieved through the good old method of wild experimentation, with the burst of capital flowing into games, new methods and ideas have affected games and their design. Today, games are heavily tested and metrics have begun to affect our design more and more. In combination with that, we have a rise of theories surrounding game design and the nature entertainment.

For the first time in history, we’re providing formal training of game making in academic environments, much like the Fine Arts and more recently cinema has. As we transition into this new era we see vast opportunities and new fields to be explored such as that of Gamification. Moreover, we have begun to formalize the study of game-making, producing a variety of material and thoughts on the matter. Theories like MDA, Bartle’s Player Archetypes, MMDA, Chemistry of Game Design and publications such as What Games Are, The Art of Game Design, A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Characteristics of Games and others have helped us better structure and organize our thoughts around games.

Moving forward, these new practices will allow us to elevate the craft of game-making even further, addressing the core of the central question of the nature of engagement. As we pioneer into this new world of design possibilities and understanding, we can now begin to anticipate the promising potential that this third era is about to usher. 

It was amidst  an insightful conversation with friends over lunch that the idea of keeping a design journal in blog-like form struck me. I was among two of good game design student friends, throwing back and forth thoughts and ideas on game design and the state of our current industry. By the third hour of sitting there in the comfortable booth that I realized how much I loved to share game design thoughts with everyone that would care to listen to me rambling about it

Since then, I have tried to amass both opportunity and time to do just so. In here I'll be sharing some of my discoveries and ideas that I stumbled upon in my journey as a game designer. My hope is that it may help you, reader, to think about and mull over some questions, pushing us to think more deeply and carefully about the nature of games.

So without further ado, I welcome you and hope to make your time reading any post worthwhile. Make sure to send me your feedback about it, I'll be eager to hear from you.

PS: I have decided to only display the comments that are relevant to the post's discussion, in an attempt to cut down some noise for people who are interested on just the discussion at hand. If you want to message me or ask questions please do so via the contact page, Thanks!