1. Creating a game

2. Steps Idea Objective(s) Purpose Gameplay Gameflow Aesthetic

3. Idea What is interesting? What isn’t? What hasn’t been done? What has? What interests you? Think creatively. Think rhetorically. Audience – Age – Gender – Type of gamer (hardcore? casual?) – Education – Income

4. Objective(s) or Premise Summary of game – Premise – Story – Characters – Major challenges – Minor challenges

5. Purpose Rhetorical (persuade somebody to do/believe) Argumentative (make a case with evidence) Advergame (demonstrative, illustrative, associative Edugame (behaviorist, constructivist) Ideological game (activism, belief) Entertain Remember, all games have these principles; you need to select the PRIMARY purpose.

6. Gameplay What is the player doing in this game? Genre? – Management game? – Hidden Object Game? – Mini-games? – FPS? – RTS? – Other? Setting? Platform?

7. Gameflow Create a decision tree for your game. All games have a gameflow. Some games have narrative (progression) elements and open-world (emergent) elements How does the player win, score, finish, not lose in the game?

8. Chance versus Choice A cornerstone of all games is the relationship of chance to choice. – Casual games tend to favor chance at the expense of choice (you don’t have to work very hard to understand them). Candyland – Chance > Choice Candy Crush Saga – Chance > Choice Monopoly – Chance > Choice Solitaire – Chance > Choice – Hardcore games tend to present both or more choice than chance Poker – Choice = Chance World of Warcraft – Choice > Chance Magic the Gathering – Choice > Chance

9. Progression (Narrative) Gameflow BeginCliffForestOceanCaveInside Cave

10. Emergent (open-world games) Begin Stage 2 Side Quests Side 1 Side 2 Main Quest Quest 2 Quest 1 Roam

11. Aesthetic Visuals Sound Text Remember to match your game’s aesthetic with its purpose.

12. GAME PROOF OF CONCEPT TOOLS

13. Video What? – Gameplay representation – Cutscenes/narrative elements Media? – Live-action – Text-to-speech animation (Plotagon) – Static/zoom-pan images with voiceover and music (comics, photographs)

14. Decision-tree hyperlinking What? – Gameplay representation – Cutscenes/narrative elements Media? – HTML (web-based hyperlink game) – PowerPoint

15. Progression (Narrative) Gameflow BeginCliffForestOceanCaveInside Cave

16. Cliff

17. Cave

21. Programmed What? – Gameplay representation – Mini-games within a larger game – Cutscenes/narrative elements Media? – Scratch – GameMaker – Alice – Sploder

22. Storyboarding What? – Gameplay representation – Cutscenes/narrative elements Media?