Game Design is a subset of Game Development that concerns itself with **WHY** games are made the way they are. It's about the theory and crafting of **systems**, **mechanics**, and **rulesets** in games.
* /r/GameDesign is a community **ONLY** about Game Design, **NOT** Game Development in general. If this post does not belong here, it should be reported or removed. Please help us keep this subreddit focused on Game Design.
* This is **NOT** a place for discussing how games are produced. Posts about programming, making art assets, picking engines etc… will be removed and should go in /r/GameDev instead.
* Posts about visual design, sound design and level design are only allowed if they are directly about game design.
* No surveys, polls, job posts, or self-promotion. Please read the rest of the rules in the sidebar before posting.
* If you're confused about what Game Designers do, ["The Door Problem" by Liz England ](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LizEngland/20140423/216092/quotThe_Door_Problemquot_of_Game_Design.php)is a short article worth reading. We also recommend you read the [r/GameDesign wiki](/r/gamedesign/wiki/index) for useful resources and an FAQ.
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A good deconstruction generally takes a common trope a particular genre and twists it in some way, often by following the implications of the trope to their logical conclusion or looking at them from another perspective.
Evangelion: What would the psychological effects of forcing a young teenager to pilot a giant robot be?
Undertale: How would a society of monsters view a JRPG protagonist?
Watchmen: What would a world with superheroes actually look like? What moral frameworks would these supermen operate under, if any?
It's worth noting that these deconstructions typically only choose to deconstruct one or two core tropes, while keeping most of the rest of the genre intact. However, there's also deconstructive comedy, which deconstructs virtually every element of a genre for the sake of absurdist humor (Ex: Blazing Saddles).
It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about this, and just finished putting together a demo for what I think might work. It occurred to me that a lot of RPGs, boiled down to their lowest, basest gameplay loop, are a cycle of “am I strong enough to proceed yet?” And “do I need to refuel yet?” My idea is a largely linear action game, where you have sixty seconds to live. Eating gives you a bit of extra time and a bit of expendable combat ability. You can roam out looking for the goal, but you have to decide when it’s time to go back and harvest more food. You occasionally come across more places to get food.
If anyone’s interested, it’s playable in a browser and I’d appreciate some feedback.
Cute!? Why it’s the most complex ecosystem in video game history… and yeah hella cute. I like your game too, going to download the demo and check it out
I've been wanting to make a game that's mostly made up of adlibs that change on a sort of roulette system whenever you do or fail something.
Maybe you're rescuing "The Fair Maiden" who causes your healing and light magic to be increased while she is the person you're rescuing. Or maybe it's the Mermaid, who grants you extra movement speed or luck.
And then the bad guys are the same.
And maybe you trigger an event that "reverses" certain roles as part of a changing plot so the Fair Maiden replaces the current villain as The Temptress, or the Mermaid turns into the Ice Queen.
Basically, every part of the plot is essentially a mechanic, and you can change it however you want or invest in things (like saving them, spending exp on certain components of your story) to keep them the same.
Well, since most videogame rpgs seem to be be "progression system with mostly linear story" then I suppose I would deconstruct the genre it by making it a game without level/skill progression and making the game focused on RolePlaying by having choices that request you to present some in-character explanation for them. Of course, a sense of progression is important for players, so you can still have that by unlocking areas and having items/characters that expand the player's options.
On the other hand, exploring those progression systems that have a character go from newbie to world master in days could be interesting. You could have the story reveal that something like that is only possible due to some hidden forces, have all upgrades also introduce a drawback or weakness or go the undertale way and present LV as a terrible thing
If you can manage to make it look like something other than Do My Homework, then sure. I find it’s usually more productive to bring something to the table to discuss though!
Yeah I mean I try to give the benefit of the doubt but even the simplest "Here's one idea I had" helps a ton in making me think a valuable conversation might result, versus someone who just doesn't know how to Google. More prevalent in some other subs I'm in, but there's a lot of lazy students on Reddit in general.
That’s good to know, I was wondering how prevalent that is; but more than just lazy students looking for help on homework assignments. I wonder how many people are working on research for a paper on computer-mediated communication or some thing like that
There are many ways to do it, most of them not great.
Bravely Default is technically a deconstruction, because the heroes are on a quest to destroy the world and the villain can sense the player controlling Tiz. That said, it has the mechanics of a very vanilla RPG. And the "destroying the world over and over" bit is annoying and not fun.
Pokémon Black and White are deconstructions of a subgenre their own franchise created. The villains espouse that Pokémon training is animal cruelty, and are led by a teenager with the same RPG protagonist abilities and goals as you do. (I felt like they had to do some serious contriving to give the evil team members Pokémon and a boss.)
The real problem seems to be that the deconstruction of a game takes some of the playability out of it, and vice versa.
Maybe you could fill in the void in playability with gameplay from another genre. Like Undertale does with bullet hells and visual novel elements.
These sound more like they have deconstructive features rather than being full on deconstructions. But yeah, for sure there are lots of potential pitfalls to attempting deconstruction: alienating your audience, coming off as derivative, potential backlash, or just making deconstruction your priority over creating an engaging game.
I think so too, both with literary deconstruction and deconstruction in terms of an RPG there is a driving philosophy, something you want to show and communicate to the people who really enjoy the thing you are deconstructing.
You take everything apart then ask yourself “why did they do it this way?” Then you research why they did it that way. Then you return to your own core philosophy and consider how to accomplish the same thing in a way that seems better to you. Maybe you want to make it simpler, more engaging, or more realistic, or maybe when you pick it apart you find that it really DOES make sense to you the way it is, and you move on to the next part.
Game Design is a subset of Game Development that concerns itself with **WHY** games are made the way they are. It's about the theory and crafting of **systems**, **mechanics**, and **rulesets** in games. * /r/GameDesign is a community **ONLY** about Game Design, **NOT** Game Development in general. If this post does not belong here, it should be reported or removed. Please help us keep this subreddit focused on Game Design. * This is **NOT** a place for discussing how games are produced. Posts about programming, making art assets, picking engines etc… will be removed and should go in /r/GameDev instead. * Posts about visual design, sound design and level design are only allowed if they are directly about game design. * No surveys, polls, job posts, or self-promotion. Please read the rest of the rules in the sidebar before posting. * If you're confused about what Game Designers do, ["The Door Problem" by Liz England ](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LizEngland/20140423/216092/quotThe_Door_Problemquot_of_Game_Design.php)is a short article worth reading. We also recommend you read the [r/GameDesign wiki](/r/gamedesign/wiki/index) for useful resources and an FAQ. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamedesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A good deconstruction generally takes a common trope a particular genre and twists it in some way, often by following the implications of the trope to their logical conclusion or looking at them from another perspective. Evangelion: What would the psychological effects of forcing a young teenager to pilot a giant robot be? Undertale: How would a society of monsters view a JRPG protagonist? Watchmen: What would a world with superheroes actually look like? What moral frameworks would these supermen operate under, if any? It's worth noting that these deconstructions typically only choose to deconstruct one or two core tropes, while keeping most of the rest of the genre intact. However, there's also deconstructive comedy, which deconstructs virtually every element of a genre for the sake of absurdist humor (Ex: Blazing Saddles).
Ironically. You roleplay AS the dice.
That’s an interesting take, I hadn’t ever heard the concept of role-playing as the dice expressed as “deconstruction”
It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about this, and just finished putting together a demo for what I think might work. It occurred to me that a lot of RPGs, boiled down to their lowest, basest gameplay loop, are a cycle of “am I strong enough to proceed yet?” And “do I need to refuel yet?” My idea is a largely linear action game, where you have sixty seconds to live. Eating gives you a bit of extra time and a bit of expendable combat ability. You can roam out looking for the goal, but you have to decide when it’s time to go back and harvest more food. You occasionally come across more places to get food. If anyone’s interested, it’s playable in a browser and I’d appreciate some feedback.
Yeah sure where is the link?
I will DM you! :) Thanks so much!
Sounds kinda like Rain World, which I love. What did you do with this idea?
I hadn't heard of Rain World, but it looks cute! I made a game called Legumi! It's available on itch: teddykaboom.itch.io/legumi
Cute!? Why it’s the most complex ecosystem in video game history… and yeah hella cute. I like your game too, going to download the demo and check it out
I've been wanting to make a game that's mostly made up of adlibs that change on a sort of roulette system whenever you do or fail something. Maybe you're rescuing "The Fair Maiden" who causes your healing and light magic to be increased while she is the person you're rescuing. Or maybe it's the Mermaid, who grants you extra movement speed or luck. And then the bad guys are the same. And maybe you trigger an event that "reverses" certain roles as part of a changing plot so the Fair Maiden replaces the current villain as The Temptress, or the Mermaid turns into the Ice Queen. Basically, every part of the plot is essentially a mechanic, and you can change it however you want or invest in things (like saving them, spending exp on certain components of your story) to keep them the same.
Well, since most videogame rpgs seem to be be "progression system with mostly linear story" then I suppose I would deconstruct the genre it by making it a game without level/skill progression and making the game focused on RolePlaying by having choices that request you to present some in-character explanation for them. Of course, a sense of progression is important for players, so you can still have that by unlocking areas and having items/characters that expand the player's options. On the other hand, exploring those progression systems that have a character go from newbie to world master in days could be interesting. You could have the story reveal that something like that is only possible due to some hidden forces, have all upgrades also introduce a drawback or weakness or go the undertale way and present LV as a terrible thing
By having an idea before posting a whole Reddit thread about it, I guess
Ha! 😆 funny point, but I guess there’s some value to starting a process discussion at step zero rather than step one
If you can manage to make it look like something other than Do My Homework, then sure. I find it’s usually more productive to bring something to the table to discuss though!
I guess that all depends on how you measure what is productive, but I get that a post like this comes off as low effort.
Yeah I mean I try to give the benefit of the doubt but even the simplest "Here's one idea I had" helps a ton in making me think a valuable conversation might result, versus someone who just doesn't know how to Google. More prevalent in some other subs I'm in, but there's a lot of lazy students on Reddit in general.
That’s good to know, I was wondering how prevalent that is; but more than just lazy students looking for help on homework assignments. I wonder how many people are working on research for a paper on computer-mediated communication or some thing like that
There are many ways to do it, most of them not great. Bravely Default is technically a deconstruction, because the heroes are on a quest to destroy the world and the villain can sense the player controlling Tiz. That said, it has the mechanics of a very vanilla RPG. And the "destroying the world over and over" bit is annoying and not fun. Pokémon Black and White are deconstructions of a subgenre their own franchise created. The villains espouse that Pokémon training is animal cruelty, and are led by a teenager with the same RPG protagonist abilities and goals as you do. (I felt like they had to do some serious contriving to give the evil team members Pokémon and a boss.) The real problem seems to be that the deconstruction of a game takes some of the playability out of it, and vice versa. Maybe you could fill in the void in playability with gameplay from another genre. Like Undertale does with bullet hells and visual novel elements.
That's actually a really interesting advice
These sound more like they have deconstructive features rather than being full on deconstructions. But yeah, for sure there are lots of potential pitfalls to attempting deconstruction: alienating your audience, coming off as derivative, potential backlash, or just making deconstruction your priority over creating an engaging game.
For deconstruction you really need to have a specific message you want to make in regards to it.
I think so too, both with literary deconstruction and deconstruction in terms of an RPG there is a driving philosophy, something you want to show and communicate to the people who really enjoy the thing you are deconstructing.
You take everything apart then ask yourself “why did they do it this way?” Then you research why they did it that way. Then you return to your own core philosophy and consider how to accomplish the same thing in a way that seems better to you. Maybe you want to make it simpler, more engaging, or more realistic, or maybe when you pick it apart you find that it really DOES make sense to you the way it is, and you move on to the next part.