Level 1.4: Let's Make a Game

Let's Make a Game!

You might be wondering how all of this is going to help you make games. It isn’t, directly… but we need to at least take some steps towards a shared vocabulary so that we can talk about games in a meaningful way.

Here’s a thing about games. I hear a lot from students that they’re afraid they won’t be able to make a game. They don’t have the creativity, or the skills, or whatever. This is nonsense, and it is time to get that out of our systems now.

If you have never made a game before, it is time to get over your fear. You are going to make a game now. Take out a pencil and paper (or load up a drawing program like Microsoft Paint). This will take all of 15 minutes and it will be fun and painless, I promise.

I mean it, get ready. Okay?

We are going to make what is referred to as a race-to-the-end board game. You have probably played a lot of these; the object is to get your token from one area of a game board to another. Common examples include Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, and Parcheesi. They are the easiest kind of game to design, and you’re going to make one now.

First, draw some kind of path. It can be straight or curved. All it takes is drawing a line. Now divide the path into spaces. You have now completed the first step out of four. See how easy this is?

Second, come up with a theme or objective. The players need to get from one end of the path to the other; why? You are either running towards something or running away from something. What are the players represented as in the game? What is their goal? In the design of many games, it is often helpful to start by asking what the objective is, and a lot of rules will fall into place just from that. You should be able to come up with something (even if it is extremely silly) in just a few minutes. You’re now half way done!

Third, you need a set of rules to allow the players to travel from space to space. How do you move? The simplest way, which you’re probably familiar with, is to roll a die on your turn and move that many spaces forward. You also need to decide exactly how the game ends: do you have to land on the final space by exact count, or does the game end as soon as a player reaches or passes it?

You now have something that has all the elements of a game, although it is missing one element common to many games: conflict. Games tend to be more interesting if you can affect your opponents, either by helping them or harming them. Think of ways to interact with your opponents. Does something happen when you land on the same space as them? Are there spaces you land on that let you do things to your opponents, such as move them forward or back? Can you move your opponents through other means on your turn (such as if you roll a certain result on the die)? Add at least one way to modify the standing of your opponents when it is your turn.

Congratulations! You have now made a game. It may not be a particularly good game (as that is something we will cover later in this course), but it is a functional game that can be played, and you made it in just a few minutes, with no tools other than a simple pencil and paper.

[Credit for developing this exercise goes to my friend and co-author, Brenda Brathwaite Links to an external site., who noticed that there is this invisible barrier Links to an external site. between a lot of people and game design, and created this as a way to get her students over their initial fear that they might not be able to design anything.]