Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals

Design and Meaning

When coming up with an initial design many designers take into consideration the basics of human interaction like “What happens when I push this lever” etc. This is due to the fact that we engage with all of our surroundings, interpret and construct meaning from. This is a very human movement toward meaning form and interaction between other people, objects and context.

When designing a game you have to take into consideration how to appropriately interact with other component such as greeting somebody, this can be as simple as saying “hello” a hug or to the more complex light punch to the arm, all are different but meaning the same concept of greeting somebody, so when designers must make the appropriate gesture and respond in the correct manner. If the designer fails to make sense of these scenarios then they have failed in understanding the overall interaction, especially since the game designers have designed the systems for the interactions with other online characters.

Another question that has been brought up over the years is the understanding of objects and how a user makes sense of them, this has led to designers in recent years borrowing insights and expertise from other fields, mostly in the field of semiotics. Semiotics is the study of meaning and process by which a meaning is made. Also the signs and questions that concern to the central field, for example if a high society dinner was being taken as a semiotic system, we would be interested in understanding the meaning and different elements that actually make up that dinner party, so you could look at the overall layout of the table and the space for eating. We might also look at elements that represent how important the event is and what it represents e.g. “power,” “elegance” or “fine dining.” Each of these perspectives contributes towards our overall understanding of the dinner party as a system of meaning.

Semiotically people use signs as ideas as a sign represents something other than just its self e.g. when you smell smoke (The Sign) you get the concept of fire. Also that sign means something to that person.