作者：Nathan Lovato

我们可以找到一些方法帮助自己更好地理解游戏设计。例如阅读书籍和文章，听演讲，以及分析游戏！在本文中我想要基于学习目的与你们一起探索有效的分析过程。及以创造者的视角去探索游戏。对于学者们或游戏分析家来说，有关游戏研究的更有效的信息来源便是Game Studies网站。

当我在研究一款游戏或它的一个组件时，我的目标便是更好地理解它是如何运行的。我想要知道它是如何创建的以及为什么是基于这种方式进行创建。换句话说，我想要了解它的作者的意图。还有另一个目标便是提高自己的观察能力并锻炼自己的批判性思维。分析的目标并不是形成有关游戏的看法，而是明确游戏的特征。如果我们只是想要基于自己的经验去判断一款游戏的话，那么我们只要检验它就好。

这一过程将提供给我们反向工程一些游戏组件的机会。这也让我们能够学到一些优秀的机制和有效的设计决策。更好的是，这能够进一步拓宽我们对于一件作品的理解。一款有效优化的游戏是整支专注的开发团队的知识汇总。它们是由一系列连贯的理念所构成，你可以在此不断地完善自己的创造。它们是深层次的灵感来源。

我想要理解哪个游戏元素？我真正想要学习的是什么？这都是依情况而定。我们想要理解许多特定或普遍的元素。也许你只是想要了解游戏的多人游戏部分是如何运行的。也许是关于游戏故事的结构。或者是关于游戏的美学。你可能需要了解一个特定的游戏机制。

分析可能很泛也可能很集中。它可能需要花费很多时间也可能只需要一点点时间。但不管怎样它都能够回答你的问题。

怎样做？

为了研究一款游戏，我们首先要去玩这款游戏。这并不是意味着我们必须从头到尾地玩游戏。因为作为创造者的我们拥有自己的工作量，所以我们没有足够的时间深入去测试一款游戏。我并不想将分析作为自己想要玩RPG游戏的借口！

如果你想要了解诀窍的话，创造游戏总是比玩游戏更有效。这也是我为什么不想花好几个小时的时间去探索一个虚拟世界的原因。而在网上观看一些视频或其它材料能够填补测试内容与完整游戏之间所存在的空缺。

当我们在分析一款游戏时，我们的目标会更倾向于客观性。而当我们作为一个玩家时，我们的的视角则是主观的。所以当我们在设计游戏时，我们就应该放下这种主观性。这在理解游戏的创造是也是一样的。因为不管怎样，游戏都是面向更广的用户。不只是为了我们自己而创造的！

但不要误解我：我们关于游戏的问题总是源自游戏提供给我们的体验。我之所以想要关注一款游戏便是因为它的一些机制很棒。但我们必须始终牢记自己的体验是独一无二的。我们也不清楚这与其他人的体验会有怎样的关系。

游戏元素

不管我们是否想要深入一个特定游戏元素或面向游戏整体，我们都能够探索Jesse Schell所谓的元素。根据Jesse Schell的《Art of Game Design》，主要存在4种元素：

1.机制。简单地说，它们是基于规则的系统，即会处理玩家的输入和输出反馈。

2.故事。

3.美学。视觉效果，声音或文本风格。

4.技术。就电子游戏来说，这是关于输入设备，目标平台，引擎，所有算式或你能够支配的较低水平的系统。

为了回答特定的问题，我们需要研究其中的一个元素或多个元素。我想要理解一款打斗游戏的角色动画是如何运行的：“开发者是如何创造出对于快速打击动画的强烈影响？”这一问题的答案便是源自美学元素。我可以仔细观察一帧帧的动画。但角色动画同时也与游戏的技术面有关。开发者创造了一棵动画树并将渲染材料的影响带到了屏幕上。在这种转换发生时将其识别出来能够帮助你创造出同样的感觉。

举个例子来说吧，在《Halo Reach》中，Bungie的动画团队便添加了一个慢跑循环有效地将玩家的行走状态转换到了跑步状态。这也创造了与较简单的系统之间的区别。并且是基于最低成本。

动画是通过观察理解技术的稀有例子之一。通常情况下，游戏中系统的技术面是很难在最终产品中呈现出来的。技术选择可能会影响最终产品所呈现出的感觉，但它们却不会给分析留下任何痕迹。不管怎样就技术而言，我还是倾向于在GDC演讲，网上论文，书籍等途径中寻求答案。

这里有三个我们能够探索的元素。让我们先简单地进行说明。

美学

在我看来，游戏美学分析较为直接。毕竟这是最显著的元素。基于训练有素的眼睛和耳朵，我们可以仔细着眼于视觉元素并花些时间去听听游戏的音效。这里我们只需要牢记住一点，美学元素应该是源自并作用于游戏玩法和故事。每个图像或音频元素都能够呈现给我们有关游戏世界的一些信息以及作为玩家的我们的目标和可能性。

美学传达的是一些沉默的信息。就像你能在That Game Company的《花》中充满活力的环境中消耗时间并放松自己。《超级食肉男孩》的锯子也会提醒你自己正深陷一个危险的世界中。这些视觉元素都在向你传达游戏故事！游戏世界通常总是能够激发到作为设计师的我。就像我第一次玩《天际》时便有这种感受。

在完成引言序列后，我自然地跟随着游戏的路径来到了第一座城市。一开始我觉得自己是独自在探索，尽管如此我也一直沿着主路前进着。我本来可能会偏离这条主路。但是我却一直走在开发者为我铺设的这条道路上。为什么呢？这便是源于游戏出色的视觉设计。

一旦我离开毁灭之城Helgen，我最终会到达通向地下河的路径。我可以在背景上看到它。在经过与龙的激烈较量后再感受春天的气息会让人更加舒畅。河流就在我面前。它是多么美丽。直接流向了Riverwood这座城市。在这里游戏情节将开始展开，一个角色将带我走向附近一座更大的城市。河流将把我带向一个能够俯瞰一个巨大峡谷的小瀑布，而这里已经是Whiterun要塞的管辖范围。

并不是只有主路和指南针能够将我引向下一个主要情节点。河流也发挥了重要作用。这一体验让我更多地去思考游戏的某一部分以及它是如何引导自己去探索这个丰富的世界。

在沿途你可以发现两个可选择的地下城：一个矿藏以及一个位于下雪区域的城堡。这两个地点都是分布在道路沿线上。当矿藏离你很近时，你便不会漏掉它，而当矿藏离你很远时，你便会觉得这是可选择的目标。紧接着出现的城堡是游戏最初的支线任务之一。它需要你暂时离开主路并会呈现给你《天际》中最早的恶劣天气。这个最早的引导式探索将激发玩家的好奇心，并且是作为这一深入的开放世界RPG游戏旅程的真正起点。

故事

游戏的故事将以和电影或书籍的情节不同的方式呈现出来。尽管游戏情节是源自电影和文学的语言，但是它们的故事却可以基于不同的形式和功能。它们将更多地支持行动。它们会提供给用户一组目标和不断发展但却始终相连贯的世界。关于功能性故事的最常见例子便是《超级马里奥》。一个留着胡须的意大利水管工在城堡中搜索着被一个肥胖且易怒的恐龙乌龟掳走的蘑菇王国公主。听起来这并不适合一本书籍吧。但这却非常适合一款游戏！

顺便一提的是，如果你想要变得更擅于编写线性故事，游戏并不是帮助你学习的理想媒体。甚至是像Telltale的情节冒险游戏等成功的受故事驱动的游戏也是基于电视节目的结构。

游戏故事不只是关于主要冒险内容和支线任务。它也包含了2个其它必要组件：世界和角色。尽管核心故事线可能很重要，但它总是会被推到背景中。而这也是有原因的。

一般情况下90%的玩家不会完成一款特定的游戏。甚至是一款具有吸引人的故事的游戏，通常有超过一半的用户会在游戏结束前停止游戏。我记得来自Bioware的开发者曾说过，他们工作室发现在当玩家看到游戏结局时，比起主要情节他们往往对于角色拥有更深刻的记忆。他们并不会回想起任何微妙的情节内容。

好像对于我来说也是如此。《最终幻想VII》中忧郁的Cloud，充满魅力的Geralt of Rivia或者大胆的Lara Croft都比他们所处故事的情节更让我印象深刻。

到目前为止很少有游戏创造了专属于该媒体的语言。对于我来说这也是最有趣的分析对象：它们是游戏故事叙述的未来，它们将为我们的产业带来创造性。而Game Company便是一个有效的例子。

在一些包含分支对话的游戏中，我们可以发现许多有关玩家可行选择的有趣的设计决策。经过Bioware的观察，用户主要分为3大类别。一些用户具有同情心，总是想要帮助别人。一些用户想要先追求自己的喜好，他们更加直接。而第3种玩家则希望和对话者混在一起。这些选择包含了许多范围以及基于有限对话的游戏风格。

游戏玩法

当我着眼于游戏玩法元素时，我将我的观察分成了一些子类别：

1.控制和输入处理。在这里我专注于游戏的整体感。

2.关卡设计。即环境结构及其引导玩家或者在沿途提升挑战的能力。

3.其它机制。包含有关锻造系统或经济运行等内容。

也许这看起来有点无力，但这也是有原因的。因为我设计的是一款小型游戏，所以这样的分类符合我的需求。控制是我所创造的游戏中最重要的部分。因此它们也是我的游戏玩法分析中最重要的部分。换句话说，我将从最贴近我的需求的内容开始进行探索。

2006年Mia Consalvo和Nathan Dutton发布了一篇有关正式的游戏分析的有趣研究，即主要是关于游戏系统。该研究提供了能够帮助我们分析更多不同游戏的一般工具包。研究者列出了4个能够帮助我们更好理解游戏主题和设计的内容：

库存。也就是游戏中所有可收集且可使用的道具。

界面。

互动地图。即和其它角色，包括NPC进行的可行的互动。

最后是包含许多范围的游戏玩法记录！

这一工具包是面向学者们所创造的，所以从设计师的角度看来它们并没有多大用处。然而它却提供了一面独特的放大镜能够帮助我们更好地去理解一款游戏。我发现其中一个最有趣的关键组件：游戏的UI。UI之所以有趣是因为它呈现出了“游戏提供给玩家的信息和选择以及游戏所保留的信息和选择。”

通过使用界面，关键信息要么被呈现在玩家面前，要么被隐藏了起来。

这能够提供给我们有关必要的变量，或者不是源自作者角度的线索。举个例子来说吧，就像受故事驱动的游戏《Journey of Flower》便没有GUI。但是这款游戏拥有一个剧情般的UI元素：角色围巾的长度能够传达他的飞翔能力。因为这样的选择，我们清楚创造者希望玩家能够更多地专注于世界而不是血条。我想他们也是在尽可能地提高玩家的沉浸感以及对于故事的专注力。

一个理念

从理论上看所有的游戏元素都是围绕着作者的基本理念。而这也是我在研究一款游戏时所找寻的内容。从内容来看，其根本理念是否容易理解？我想知道作者是否想要提供符合自己目的的体验。充满活力且足够严谨的核心理念总是能与用户形成共鸣并成就一个成功的作品。这同时也能够组成游戏的架构，从而帮助我们更好地去理解一款游戏。

找到一个基本理念其实也是一种猜测。仅凭自己的记录我们是不可能准确了解开发者的目标。但是通过将我们的观察与其他人的经历，网上的评价与访问相结合，我们便能够拥有更接近事实的了解。但也有些创造者愿意提供有关自己最初目的的各种信息，所以这时候我们就不需要自己去各种猜测了。

而基本的理念是什么呢？简单来说它可能包含所有的内容。

通常情况下一款游戏的主要理念，也就是我们所谓的核心主题/结构概念便是某种基于哲理的信息或一个常见主题。尽管这是关于主题的一种定义，但是就游戏设计而言它却不适合指代概念。游戏主要是将所有设计选择整合和在一起的主导理念。它可以是一条信息，一个主题，或者一个较大且具有针对性的设计目标。这是定义游戏基本要素的主要陈述。最理想的情况是它将同时包含你的故事和游戏图像。但实际上大多数游戏的游戏玩法和故事还是基于不同的目标。

核心理念有点像是一个房子的地基：即所有事物都是围绕着它建造起来的。如果地基足够牢固，你的房子便能够承受得住时间的较量。否则它将会很容易坍塌。这是一个能够赋予你的设计统一性的工具。就像《遍地果冻》这款游戏一样。游戏主题是关于一个具有深度但却简单的汽车模拟。还有像《极限竞速》。但需要注意的是我只是在猜测创造者对于自己游戏的目的而已。有可能我所猜测的结果与真正的主题是不同的。

《超级食肉男孩》便是一款带有强大游戏玩法核心理念的游戏。Edmund McMillen的目标是创造一款永远不会破坏游戏流和乐趣的硬核游戏。更简单地说便是，他着眼于创造一款玩家虽然会失败很多次但却不会因此受挫的游戏。

基于此我们便可以更清楚地理解游戏以及Team Meat的设计选择。

作为游戏主角的小块肉的行动总是非常迅速。他会在经过的地板上和墙上留下血迹。而这将能告诉玩家他上一轮走了多远。如果你到达一个没有任何血迹的区域，那就说明这是你第一次到达这里。

主角的每次死亡都很壮观，即会伴随着肉沫的四处飞溅。而之后食肉男孩还会不断衍生出来。一旦玩家完成了一个关卡他便能够马上看到自己每一次死亡的再现。基于这种方式玩家便会觉得多次尝试每个关卡的过程具有奖励性。虽然它不会让反复的死亡过程变得有趣。尽管游戏很复杂，但它不仅能够迎合硬核玩家，也能够吸引到更广泛用户的注意。

不管是根本理念，主题，还是设计师的目标或目的，尽管我们只能进行猜测，但我认为这都能够帮助我们更好地了解并研究一款游戏。

结论

游戏分析应该是符合你的需求。对于我来说游戏分析主要是围绕着3大显著的游戏元素：

1.美学

2.故事

3.游戏玩法

它们共同支持着一个能够明确作者目标的根本游戏理念。每个设计选择的存在都是有原因的，而这一原因也是与其核心理念相关的。再一次地，这也是帮助我们从整体上分析并理解一款游戏的强大工具。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Exploring Games from the Creator’s Perspective

by Nathan Lovato

There are a few ways we can go about improving our understanding of game design. We can read books, articles, watch talks… We can also analyze games! In this article, I want to explore with you an efficient analysis process, for learning purposes. It is about exploring games with a creator’s eye. For scholars or game analysts, a better source of information on game research would be the website Game Studies.

When I study a game or one of its components, my goal is to better understand how it works. I want to know how it was built and why it was made that way. In other word, I’m looking to get a sense of the intention of its authors. A secondary objective is to sharpen my observation skills, to practice critical thinking. The goal of an analysis is not to formulate an opinion about the game, but rather to outline its characteristics. If we were to just judge a game based on our sole experience, we would be reviewing it instead.

This process gives us an opportunity to reverse engineer some of a game’s components. It permits us to steal mechanics and solid design decisions like artists. Or better, to widen our understanding of the craft. Polished games are an application of the knowledge of whole teams of dedicated developers. They are made up of coherent networks of ideas you can bounce on to improve your own creations. They are deep sources of inspiration.

Which elements of a game am I looking to understand? What am I looking to learn exactly? It depends. There are many specific or general aspects we may want to figure out. Maybe you just want to see how the multiplayer portion of the game works. Maybe it is about the structure of its story. It could be about the richness of the game’s aesthetics. You may want to get the hang of a specific mechanic.

An analysis can be broad or focused. It can take a little or a lot of time. But in any case, it should answer your questions, your needs.

How?

This is obvious, but in order to study a game, we should first play it. This doesn’t mean we must play the whole way through. With the workloads we face as creators, we can’t afford to spend days testing games in depth. I don’t want to use analysis as a pretext to beat the RPGs I’m dying to play!

If you want to learn the tricks of the trade, it’s more efficient to create games rather than to play them. That is why I don’t want to spend more than a couple of hours exploring a virtual world. Not just for the sake of surveying it. Let’s play videos and other material found online can fill the gaps between your test session and what the full title has to offer.

When we analyze a game, our goal is to lean a bit towards objectivity. Our perspective as a lone player is purely subjective. And it always will be. However, it is critical to leave our own shoes whenever we design games. The same is true when we want to understand how a game was made. Because after all, it was made for a wide variety of users. Not just for us!

Don’t get me wrong: our questions regarding a game often arise from the experience it provides us. I too want to look at a title below the surface because some of its mechanics feel great. But we must keep in mind that our experience is unique. We cannot know how much it relates with everyone else’s experience.

The elements of games

Whether we want to dig a specific aspect of a game or the whole thing, we can explore what Jesse Schell calls the elements. Together, the elements of a game form its broad anatomy. According to Jesse Schell’s Art of Game Design, there are 4:

1.The mechanics. Simply put, they are the rule-based systems that process the player’s input, and output feedback in response.

2.The story.

3.The aesthetics. Be it the visuals, the sound… or even the style of the text.

4.And the technology. In the case of a video game, this corresponds to the input devices, target platform, your engine and all of the algorithms or low level systems at your disposal.

They can be studied either one by one or in combination in order to answer specific questions. I may be looking to understand how a fighting game’s character animation works: “how did the developers bring such a strong sense of impact to those fast hitting animations?” The answer lies in the aesthetics. I could look at the animations frame by frame. But character animation also relates to the technical side of a game. The developers have built an animation tree with transitions that affect the rendered material on screen. Spotting when the transitions happen can be key to reproducing the same feel.

For example, in Halo Reach, the animation team at Bungie inserted a jog cycle to improve the transition from the characters’ walk state to their running state. It makes a hell of a difference with simpler systems! And at a small cost. The company published a detailed rundown of their technical choices.

Animation is one of the rare cases where the technology can be partly grasped via observation. Often, the technical side of systems used in a game is barely visible in the final product. Technical choices may affect the feel of the final game, but they leave almost no trails for analysis. Anyway, as far as the technology is concerned, I tend to seek answers in GDC presentations, online papers, books…

There are 3 elements left that we can explore. Let us talk about the easiest to observe first.

The Aesthetics

In my opinion, the analysis of a game’s aesthetics is straightforward. After all, it is its most visible element. With a trained eye and ear, we can all take a careful look at the visuals, and take a moment to listen to the sounds. There is only one thing we have to keep in mind. The aesthetics should both derive from and serve the gameplay and the story. Each graphic or audio element tells us some information about the world we’re in, as well as our goals and possibilities as a player.

The aesthetics deliver wordless messages. The vibrant and lush environments in That Game Company’s Flower tell you that you can take your time and relax! The saws in Super Meat Boy remind you are evolving in a dangerous world. Those visuals tell the gameplay’s story! The universe of a game is often what pokes my curiosity as a designer. This is actually what happened the first time I played Skyrim.

After the intro sequence, I naturally followed the path to the first city. At first, I felt like I was exploring the land on my own, although I was but walking along the main road. I could have strayed away from it anytime. There were no strings attached to me. Yet, I stayed on the path the developers had prepared for me. Why? It all boiled down to its clever visual design.

Once I left the devastated city of Helgen, I ended up on a charming path leading to a river underneath. It was visible in the background. The springtime weather felt appeasing after a rough encounter with a Dragon. The river was sitting right in front of me. It was beautiful. And it flew right down to the city of Riverwood. The intrigue started to unfold there, as a character invited me to keep traveling towards a larger city nearby. The river lead me to a cascade overlooking a magnificent valley, dominated by the imposing fortress of Whiterun.

It is not only the main road and the compass that took me to the next major plot point. It also was the river. This experience led me to think a little bit more about that section of the game and how it invites you to explore its rich world.

Along the way, you can find 2 optional dungeons: a mine, and a castle located in a cold and snowy area. Both locations are situated along the road. The mine is place close enough so you can’t miss it, and far enough so it feels optional. The castle, which comes next, is part of the game’s first side-quest. It requires you to part ways with the main road for a moment, and gives you a first taste of Skyrim’s harsh weather. This first guided exploration pokes the player’s curiosity and marks the real beginning of his journey in this deep open world RPG.

The story

The story element of a game has to be approached in a different way than a movie’s or a book’s plot. Although games scenarios draw from the language of cinema and literature, their stories can have very different forms and functions. They tend to support the action more so than hold up on their own. They provide the users with a set of goals and a coherent universe to evolve into. The most common example of a functional story is Super Mario. An Italian mustached plumber explores castles in search of the mushroom Kingdom’s Princess, who was abducted by a fat, spiky dinosaur turtle. How does that sound? Well, it wouldn’t work for a book. Yet, it’s a perfect fit for the game!

By the way, if you want to get better at writing linear stories, games are not the ideal media to study from. Even successful story driven titles like Telltale’s episodic adventures are inspired by the structure of TV series.

A game’s story goes beyond the main adventure and side quests. It encompasses 2 other essential components: the universe, and the characters. Although the central storyline may be of importance, it is often pushed to the background. And there is a somewhat good reason for that.

On average, 90% of players do not finish a given game. Even with immersive story driven titles, often more than half of the users stop before the end. I remember a note from a Bioware developer on the matter: the studio observed that after having seen their games’ ending, the players had built much stronger memories of the characters than of the main plot. They didn’t really recall any subtleties of the intrigue.

This seems about right to me. The somber Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, the charismatic Geralt of Rivia or the adventurous Lara Croft marked my mind more so than the plots they were part of.

Few games so far have started to explore and shape a language that would be unique to the medium. And those are, to me, the most interesting ones to analyze: they are the future of game storytelling, for they bring innovations to our industry. That Game Company is a solid example.

In some titles filled with branching dialogues, we can find a wealth of interesting design decisions regarding the players’ available choices. Bioware observed that as far as dialogues are concerned, the users fall into 3 broad categories. Some are empathetic and want to help others. Some seek their own interest first and would rather be blunt. A 3rd category of player just wants to mess with their interlocutor. These options cover a lot of ground and playstyles with a restricted dialogue wheel.

The gameplay

When I look at the gameplay element, I split my observations into multiple subcategories:

1.The controls and how the input is handled. Here, I focus on the overall feel of the game.

2.The level design. Be it the environment structure and its ability to lead the player, or the challenges that arise along the way.

3.Other mechanics. The category can contain notes about how the crafting system or the economy work for instance.

That may seem lean, but there is a reason for it. As I design small games, this approach fits my needs. The controls are the most important part of the games I work on. Thus, they are the most important part of my gameplay analyses. In other words, I class the systems I am going to survey from the ones that are the most relevant to my needs to the least useful ones.

Mia Consalvo and Nathan Dutton released an interesting study in 2006 regarding the formal analysis of games, mostly focused on its systems. It provides a general toolkit that is meant to serve as a base to analyze a wide range of games qualitatively. The researchers outline 4 components we can look at to better understand a game’s themes and design:

The inventory. That is to say all of the collectible or available items in the game.

The interface.

The interaction map. This corresponds to all of the available interactions with other characters, including NPCs.

And finally the gameplay log… which covers a lot of ground!

This toolkit is intended for scholars, so it is not efficient at all from a designer’s standpoint. Yet, it provides a unique and fresh set of lenses to better understand a game. There is one of its key components that I find most interesting: the game’s UI. What is so interesting about the interface is that it shows the “information and choices that are offered to the player, as well as the information and choices that are withheld.”

Critical information is thoughtfully either shared or hidden from the player through the use of an interface.

It gives us some cues regarding the variables that are essential or not from the author’s point of view. For example, story driven titles like Journey of Flower have no GUIs at all. Journey has but one diegetic UI element to offer: the length of the character’s scarf, which dictates his ability to fly. That’s it. Because of this choice, we know that the creators want the player to focus their minds on the world rather than to monitor their lifebar. We can guess that they are trying to maximize the player’s immersion and focus on the story.

That one idea

All of the elements of a game theoretically revolve around and come together in the authors’ fundamental idea. All in all, that is what I am looking for when I study a game. Based on its content, is its fundamental idea intelligible? I want to see if the authors managed to offer an experience that matches their intention. A vibrant, mindfully exploited core idea resonates with the audience and often results in a successful creation. It is also supposed to structure the game. Thus it gives us a solid lens to better understand it.

Finding the fundamental idea is a game of guesses. At the end of the day, we cannot know what the exact goals of the developers were from our sole notes. But by crossing our observations with other people’s experiences, online reviews and interviews, we can get a close enough approximation. Some creators expose a wealth of information along with their initial intentions and talks or devlogs as well. So sometimes, the need to guess is solved altogether.

But what can the fundamental idea be? The short answer: all sorts of things.

All too often, the main idea of a game, which we can also call its core theme/structural concept, is perceived either as some kind of philosophical message or a general topic. Although it is one definition of the word theme, it doesn’t fit the concept as far as game design is concerned. The theme of a game is the dominant idea that unifies all design choices into a coherent whole. It could be a message, it could be a topic, but it could also be a large, yet specific design goal. It is a strong statement that defines what’s essential about your game. And it should ideally encompass both your story and your gameplay art the same time. In practice though, most games still have separate goals for the gameplay and the story.

The core idea is a bit like your house’s foundations: it is a base on which everything else will be built. If it is solid, your house will bear the weight of time. Otherwise, it is more likely to crack in places, or even crumble. It is the one tool which’s main purpose is to bring unity into your design. It can be something like: “The Floor Is Jelly”. This gives us a game like The Floor Is Jelly. The theme can be to make a deep, yet accessible car simulation. This would give us a game like Forza Motorsport. Note that I am only guessing what the intention of the creators was for those games. Chances are I’m far off from their true main theme.

Super Meat Boy is a good example of a game with a strong gameplay-centric core idea. Edmund McMillen’s goal was to create a hard-core game that never broke its flow or fun. In simpler terms, he was looking to create a game where you lose a lot, and that is not frustrating.

With that in mind, we can take an informed look at the game and the Team Meat’s design choices.

The main character, a little square of meat, is swift and agile. He leaves a persistent trail of blood along the floor and the walls as he steps on them. This gives the player a visual indication of how far he went during his last run. If you get to a point in the level where there is no blood, well, then this is the first time you’re getting there.

Each death is a bit spectacular and accompanied by a meat splash. Meat Boy respawns instantly afterwards. And once he clears a level, the player can watch a replay of all of his deaths at once. That way, the process of trying each level many times feels rewarding. It certainly can’t make the process of dying repeatedly fun for everyone. But despite being very hard, the game did not only please hard-core gamers; it reached a wide audience.

The fundamental idea, the theme, the designer’s goals or intentions… Call it whatever you want, although we can only take a guess, I think it offers us a powerful lens to study a game in its entirety.

Summary

A game analysis should be tailored to your needs. If you had to remember but one thing from this article, it would be that. For me, it mostly revolves around the 3 most visible elements of a game:

1.The aesthetics

2.The story

3.And the gameplay

They collectively support a fundamental idea that crystallizes the authors’ intentions. Every design choice should be there for a reason, and that reason relates to that core idea. Once again: I think it is a powerful lens to analyze and understand a game as a whole.(source:gamasutra)