It seems so simple — this easy answer should do:
- "Game design is the process of designing a game."
Awwright! Question answered. Mystery solved.
Not really.
Game design is so much more, something so much more fundamental than just it's base mechanics. The true heart of game design lies deeper than just that. After all, when you look at the various genres, there's really not much similarity between Pac-Man and Final Fantasy VII.
Or is there?
To get to the point, I'm going to take a side step here into a coffee shop somewhere in Virginia. I used to go there with my girlfriend. When she would ask me what kind of coffee I wanted I always responded "You pick. You're engineering an experience."
There it is. The essence of game design in overpriced lattes and espresso. Each of the caffeinated concoctions is a bit different from one another. Some wholly different. What makes them different isn't their ingredients. Whenver you want a Super-Sugar-Loaded Espresso Blasto!!TM, you get it for the freekin' BUZZ. Whenever you get the Lightly Sinful Delightfully Warm Chocolate Girly Giggle RomanceTM, you're getting it for all those things, or at least because it reminds you of those things and brings up similar feelings.1
Let's get back to game design.
Specifically Pac-Man and Final Fantasy VII. In the arcade version of Pac-Man, the background 'music' — if you can call it that — is an alarm-like sound. Alarms suggest danger, fear, excitement. It's there to heighten the experience. Final Fantasy VII is famous for one of best known engineered experiences of all time: Aeris. The experience was carefully planned and engineered along a path that starts at the moment you chose to buy a pretty flower from a girl, to the church, to the date, all the way up to watching her fade away forever.
Now that's game design.
When you start thinking about your next game design project, try this. Instead of thinking "I'd like to make X type of game.", think this "I want to give my players X experience."
— hartnell
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