Hello, my name is Mike Gowen.

Learning Game Design: Designing a Game is Like Playing a Game

I came to the realization today that designing a game is a lot like *playing* a game. It often feels like the solution already exists, and it is simply my job is to uncover it. An infant game design is like a giant disassembled puzzle of disparate parts. The parts have to put together in the perfect combination to form a cohesive entity where each part logically relates to every other part, which in turn relates to a higher meta goal. Leave a critical part out, or add a superfluous part and the system risks collapse. This is very different from my experience creating web applications. While feature selection is critical, the overall app isn’t typically volatile enough to be that sensitive to single feature decisions.

My friend Yvette pointed me to this quote from L. Rust Hills about the process of creating literary fiction work…sounds familiar.

“Everything must work with everything else. Everything enhances everything else, interrelates with everything else, is inseparable from everything else — and all this is done with a necessary and perfect economy.”