Shared Vocabulary for Game Design


 

I have a rough concept of what I would like to do here and hope that others will improve on my ramblings here!

I am an Artist by trade and training (Animator). So this is my personal preference in the way I will approaching this project. (i.e. Visual )

If other people have a different approach to this they should link to this page so we can compare notes and share ideas.

 

Steven Goodman

 

 

PROJECT: Shared Vocabulary for Game Design

 

Concept:

To create a lexicon of reusable terms for communicating the aspects and nuances of designing games and define their proper usage and importance.

 

Methods:

FUN! Artistic, Creative, Open-minded, free-form word association, mind-maps, etc...

 

 

 

ONE: Experiment in Word Manipulation 

First we need to find and Identify the many words that may be of Importance to the understanding of games and a game design discussion. 

 

Wordle for PDF of I Have No Words & I Must Design:Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games by Greg Costikyan (http://www.wordle.net/) 

Wordle for PDF of I Have No Words & I Must Design:Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games by Greg Costikyan (http://www.wordle.net/)

If you have trouble viewing this wordle picture use this link!

 

Things I noticed from my first look.

 

The twenty most popular words from this Wordle. 

  1. game, Games
  2. players, player
  3. Design
  4. structure
  5. One
  1. GOALS, goal
  2. struggle
  3. Words
  4. make
  5. like
  1. world
  2. People
  3. interactive
  4. entertainment
  5. MEANING
  1. Must
  2. way
  3. good
  4. many
  5. play

 

 

Words with a little emphases.

                                                  Games, game               One               Words               People               Must

 

Words with more emphases.

                                     GOALS, goal               MEANING               ENDOGENOUS (#48 in the list)               INTERACTION

 

 

The word 'fun' is not emphasised nor is it highly important?     Why not?

                                                                                                                    fun (#87 in the list) 

 

The word 'rules' is also not high in priority, but it beat fun?     Why?     Are rules more important than fun?

                                                                                                                   rules (#63 in the list)