Interaction Design · Project 1 of 3 · Weeks 1–5
ID Project 2: Game Design
Systems thinking, meaningful play, and design as argument
FORMAT
Individual
WEEKS
5-10
METHODS
Game design · Systems thinking · Rules writing · Hand-built components · Probability analysis · Structured playtesting · Quantitative data collection · Statistical comparison · Data visualization · Iterative revision · Critique
TAGS
Design Thinking, Game Design, Interaction, Design Education
Why this project
Every game is a system. Rules define what is possible. Probability shapes what is likely. Players make decisions inside those constraints, and the game responds. This project asks students to design that system — and to make it matter.
The serious games tradition — from Monopoly's origins as a critique of land speculation to Papers Please's simulation of border control bureaucracy to Spent's navigation of poverty — demonstrates that games have always been one of the ways humans rehearse reality. Jesse Schell's framework for game design and Salen and Zimmerman's concept of meaningful play give students theoretical tools for understanding what makes a game's mechanics carry its subject rather than merely accompany it. A game that is about climate change but whose mechanics reward unlimited resource extraction has a contradiction at its center. Finding and resolving that contradiction is the design work.
The Quantitative Reasoning thread of the course reaches its most intensive point in this project. Students calculate probability distributions for their game mechanics, run two structured playtest sessions, collect data on play time, rules clarity, and enjoyment ratings, and calculate improvement percentages between version 1 and version 2. The data is part of the design and informs the designer how a player works through the game and the rules of the game. A student who discovers through data that players ask an average of seven rules clarification questions per session has learned something about clarity that may not become evident within a critique. The data is evidence of real human experience with the design.
The Brief
PROJECT PROMPT
Design a tabletop game for 2–4 players that engages meaningfully with a real-world issue of your choosing. The game should do more than entertain — it should shift something. A perspective. An assumption. An understanding of how a system works.
Your game is an argument about how the world works, or how it should. The rules are your reasoning. The components are your evidence. The player's experience is your conclusion.
Build it by hand. Test it with real players. Collect data. Revise based on what the numbers tell you. Test it again. The gap between version 1 and version 2 is where the real design work happens.
DELIVERABLE
Documentation of 3 meaningful games analyzed: mechanics, how meaning is embedded in structure
Version 1 rules document plus design statement (one paragraph on issue, perspective, intended player experience)
Version 1 components — hand-built: board, cards, tokens, or whatever the game requires
Version 1 playtest data: play time, rules questions, enjoyment ratings (1–5), confusion points
Version 2 rules document with annotated changes and rationale
Version 2 components — revised Version 2 playtest data
Statistical comparison: version 1 vs version 2, improvement percentages calculated
Data visualization: chart or table making the comparison readable at a glance
Revised design statement: did version 2 get closer to what you set out to do?
Process book documentation: research, rules drafts, component development, data, analysis, final work
What I've learned from running this
The game design project shifts the perception of the quantitative reasoning requirement from a mandatory task to a valuable tool. This change occurs around the second playtest. Initially, students see data collection as just a duty, but when they analyze their data, they realize it reveals insights they couldn’t see during the design process. Seven rules-clarification questions per session indicate unclear rules. An average enjoyment rating of 2.3 out of 5 shows the game isn’t effective. A playtime of 90 minutes versus the intended 30 suggests scope issues. These are factual indicators, not opinions. Observing students make design choices based on this evidence — and witnessing their progress — is one of the most rewarding teaching moments of the semester.
Requiring games to address real-world issues leads to more serious and formally refined projects compared to open-topic game design. When students focus on topics they care about—such as housing instability, immigration, climate change, or mental health systems—they make design choices with a level of detail that entertainment games usually do not demand. They must consider questions like: whose perspective does this game represent? What does it mean to win in a game about poverty—and is winning even the appropriate goal? These inquiries result in games that are both genuinely engaging to play and meaningfully challenging in constructive ways.
The requirement for hand-built components evokes the same resistance and appreciation as traditional analog requirements in every course project. Students aiming to print professionally designed cards soon realize that index cards and markers are enough for testing the game’s functionality — and that a game failing with index cards won't necessarily be improved by better printing. This material constraint shifts the focus towards the system itself rather than superficial aspects.
My MFA research centered on game design and how people interact with designed objects and environments. This project directly reflects that research within an educational setting. Games are fundamentally interaction design challenges; they offer affordances, generate feedback, demand mental models, and can be tested and refined. Norman's insights on physical objects are equally applicable to game systems. Likewise, the principles of human-centered design taught in this course are relevant to game design. Far from deviating from interaction design, this project exemplifies it clearly.
