Iterative design & games

Gaming creativity process, allow a myriad of methodological using possibilities. In the gaming projects that I participated, I frequently used the iterative design method. One first view about this methodological process comes from Zimmerman (2003, p.176), who says, ‘iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a work in progress’.



Complementing the previous idea, the process of iterative design for games, can be divided into few stages (FULLERTON et al, 2008, p.249): A) conceptual phase: consists of generating ideas, formalizing and testing them; B) pre-production: here the ideas are reviewed to evolve and be tested again; C) the production stage: the game is tested and revised with different groups of play testers to locate errors; D) phase of quality assurance: where the game is tested to be launched without errors.

We'll discuss more about these subject in a future post using some examples (indie games and triple A games) to clarify this idea. Until then, check out the video below about iterative design applied to games:



#GoGamers

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References:

ZIMMERMAN, Eric. Play as Research: the Iterative Design Process. IN: Design Research: Methods and Perspectives, (2003): 176-184. (also available at last access: May, 2015).

FULLERTON, Tracy et al. Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann, 2008.