Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Design Patterns in Games
The attempts to set up a design pattern language, as opposed to a design vocabu-
lary, have been fewer. Bernd Kreimeier suggested a design pattern framework in his
Gamasutra
article “The Case for Game Design Patterns” (2002), but he never actu-
ally built one. In their book
Game Design Patterns
(2005), Staffan Björk and Jussi
Holopainen describe hundreds of patterns, and you can find many more patterns on
the accompanying website. However, Björk and Holopainen choose the following
definition as their starting point for their pattern language: “Game design patterns
are semiformal interdependent descriptions of commonly reoccurring parts of the
design of a game that concern gameplay” (p. 34). In other words, their approach is
much more like a design vocabulary than it is like a pattern language. They do not
formulate a clear theoretical vision on what
quality
in games is or where it might
come from. Their book is a valuable collection of design knowledge, but it does not
really tell you how to use that knowledge effectively to build better games.
Any effort to identify design patterns in games should begin with a clear theoretical
vision on what makes a game objectively good—where its intrinsic quality comes
from. Based on that vision, it should identify common problems and offer generic
solutions to those problems, just as Alexander did for architecture. In that way,
design patterns really become a useful tool for game design, not just game analysis.
That is how we approach the game design patterns in this topic.
In the previous chapters, we discussed quality in games from the perspective of a
game's internal economy. Our discussion focused on how certain structural features
of the game economy (such as feedback loops) create emergent gameplay. It should
not come as a surprise that the relation between the structure of a game's internal
economy and its emergent gameplay is the focal point of the pattern language we
present in this chapter. In addition, as Machinations diagrams proved to be very
useful in describing the structure of a game's internal economy, it makes sense to
use Machinations diagrams to express these patterns.
Pattern Descriptions
In Appendix B you will find complete descriptions of all the design patterns used in
this topic. You will notice that these descriptions follow a strict format. If you are
familiar with software design patterns, you might recognize the format; we took it
from the descriptions used in
Design Patterns
by the Gang of Four.
