Game design

Game design and planning

In the context of the rapid development of the gaming industry and increased competition for users' attention, high-quality game design is not just an element of development, but a strategic asset of a gaming product.

Game design and game planning services make games understandable and interesting to players. It covers a range of work on game mechanics, balance, narrative, progression, and user experience (UX). At this stage, the architecture of the gameplay is formed, a game design document (game design document) is developed, and key parameters are set - from the idea and style to technical nuances.

What is game design and what benefits does the service provide to the client?

Game design (game design, game design, game design) is the creation of gameplay, that is, the game process. It answers questions about what options will be available to the player, what are the conditions for victory and defeat, how the user will control the character's behavior and/or influence events in the game, and how they will interact with the game world and other players.

What result does the client get thanks to game design:

• Well-designed game mechanics – you get a balanced, logical, and exciting game with rules that are clear to players, progression, and a variety of interaction formats. This makes the product interesting and engaging.
• User-friendly interface – the game designer provides intuitive controls, clear goals, and a system of in-game rewards. This helps retain the audience, improving the quality of the user experience.
• Increasing monetization potential – game design provides a balanced game economy, thanks to which players feel the value and significance of in-game purchases, are more loyal to advertising and, as a result, are willing to invest money in the game.
• Optimization of the development process and cost - structured game design documentation and careful development of the concept at the initial stages ensure the fastest possible release and minimize the likelihood of rework, delays, and the associated increase in the project budget.
• Competitive advantages and originality - developing an idea, unique mechanics, style, and creating a scenario for a game based on an individual project allows you to stand out from your competitors, meet the needs of the audience, market trends, and be remembered thanks to a fascinating story that evokes an emotional response.
• Flexibility and scalability – game design makes the game adaptive, simplifies the integration of various updates, additional modes, and events.

Professional game design allows you to create a competitive product that will attract the attention of the target audience and be successful from a commercial point of view.

Main directions and elements of game design

Game design as an aspect of game development consists of four interrelated components, each of which defines the fundamental characteristics of the future game product:

Game mechanics

Defines the goals, rules, interaction algorithms, and behavioral scenarios within the gameplay. This is the core of the system gameplay, determining how the game will function and what exactly will attract users.

This includes all aspects of gameplay, from how the character will move to how the game environment will react to the players' actions.

For example, can the player open all the doors or only part of them, by what signs can the user understand this, how will he open the door - by kicking/pressing the handle, whether he needs to find a key/solve a puzzle/wait for the end of the story episode, etc.

It is important to make mechanics intuitive and logical, which requires game designers to have a deep understanding of the audience and the specifics of the genre.

Narrative and lore (history of the game world), characters

This is the construction of the storyline, the development of the narrative structure, the development of characters and events within the game universe. Carefully developing and creating a plot for a game is a critically important stage. A strong narrative foundation ensures high player engagement and retention regardless of the scale of the project.

Well-thought-out characters provide depth and emotional engagement to the game. It is important to carefully develop unique traits and motivations that help drive the plot and fill it with unexpected twists - so that players are interested in watching how the main and secondary characters interact with each other.

Aesthetics and visual concept

In this part of game design, the game designer works on the artistic style, interface solutions, sound and visual identity of the project, and its distinctive atmosphere - everything that makes the product recognizable.

The visual design and sound design of the game ensure the integrity of the user experience, immersion in the game universe, and the attractiveness of the product for the target audience, taking into account their interests.

Technological implementation

At this stage, the services of game designers include organizing a convenient interaction between the player and the game. That is, choosing the target platform, input interfaces, working out the UX/UI design, and the specifics of game engines.

This stage reflects the technical capabilities of the future game development product and the potential for implementing certain elements and concepts of game design. The entire list of software and hardware is taken into account here.

The game designer, project manager, and customer must agree on the answers to all of these questions before the game development begins. Comprehensive custom game design with careful consideration of these four aspects allows for the creation of a high-quality, commercially viable product that is targeted at a specific audience segment and meets the customer's objectives, current trends, and the requirements of the target segment of the gaming market.

The game design studio Arionis Games will perform game design for you from scratch, and our specialists will join your team at any stage of the implementation of your game product, speed up the workflow and ensure a successful release. To discuss the tasks ahead of you in more detail, we invite you to a preliminary consultation .

Custom game design: stages of work at the game design studio Arionis Games

Game designers at Arionis Games perform creative, technical, and managerial tasks, participating in game development from the earliest stages to release. Each of them makes an important contribution to creating a quality product, working on separate aspects of game creation.

Game design: how games are created at Arionis Games studio

Our team provides a full game design cycle:

• development of the concept and plot core;
• designing game mechanics;
• level, character and user interface (UX/UI) design;
• prototyping (creation of iterative prototypes);
• compiling and maintaining game design documentation (GDD),
• Comprehensive game development for various platforms, production process control with regular, step-by-step reporting on completed work.

The price of game design services depends on the complexity of the game, the scale of the project, the list of platforms, graphics requirements, and technical features of the product. The stages of game development were discussed in detail here.

The key document and foundation of game design is the design document for the game, which is approved at the initial stage of cooperation and, if necessary, adapted during the development process, taking into account the dynamics of the project and feedback from the producers, customer, target audience, and team.

Game designers at Arionis Games not only shape the game's vision, but also:

• conduct market analytics and trend monitoring;
• coordinate the work of other team members (programmers, artists, animators, testers, etc.);
• manage development using modern methodologies that ensure controllability and maximum efficiency of the process (Scrum, Agile);
• participate in collecting analytics and testing the product at various stages of its production;
• prepare presentations for customers, publishers or investors;
• support the project after release: from analyzing metrics to releasing updates.

In their work, the specialists of the Arionis Games studio combine creativity with engineering precision, creating products that successfully withstand competition in global and niche markets.

Technologies

To create game design and gameplay, a wide range of technologies and tools are used, which provide a structured approach to designing a gaming experience:

• Engines and development environments for prototyping and testing game mechanics: Unity, Unreal Engine, Godot Engine.
• Tools for UX/UI interface design (for describing and visualizing interfaces, screens, HUDs): Figma, Moqups, Zeplin / InVision.
• Narrative and scripting technologies (for plot design, dialogues, quests): Twine, Articy:draft, ChatMapper.
• Balance and economics (calculation of game systems, balance, progression): Machinations.io, Google Sheets, Excel.
• Version and task management systems: Git / GitHub / GitLab, Jira / TeamWork.
• Additional technologies: 3D packages (Blender, Maya), Tiled / TGA / ProBuilder (Unity).
• To create and maintain a game design document: Google Docs / Notion / Confluence, Miro / Whimsical / FigJam, Markdown editors.

Visualization, prototyping, documentation, and analytics tools are used to create game design and game documentation. They ensure systematic development, accurate descriptions of mechanics, narrative, balance, and UX/UI, and ensure documentation is accessible to all team members and the customer.

Key principles of quality game design: what is cool game design

There are three key principles underlying professional game design that ensure the high quality of a game product and its commercial competitiveness:

1. Player-centricity

The fundamental task that a game designer needs to solve is to create a gaming experience that the end user will enjoy. This involves adapting the game mechanics, style, and other characteristics of the game to the specifics of the target audience (level of training, interests, expectations, preferences, age, social background, and behavioral patterns).

The game should arouse interest, entertain the target audience, provide interactivity and a high level of player involvement at all stages of the gameplay. It is to achieve these goals that experienced game design masters who understand the specifics of a particular genre, audience, and the dynamics of the gaming market are needed. For these reasons, the cost of game design directly depends on the experience and qualifications of specialists.

2. Game balance and difficulty curve

Well-designed progression and a balance between challenge and achievement are integral components of a quality game. A well-balanced difficulty curve keeps the player interested, allowing them to find a balance between boredom due to too-easy tasks and irritation due to too-difficult ones.

3. Feedback system

High-quality game design is impossible without taking feedback into account. Before creating a game design, you need to understand what and why your target audience is interested in. When working on gameplay, interfaces, and UX/UI design, it is important to make sure that all game elements and solutions are convenient and understandable to users - right down to visual, audio, and gameplay signals that signal success, progress, failure, etc.

Feedback helps make a game development project as attractive and relevant to the interests of the target audience as possible.

Why do you need a game design document?

A game design document (GDD) is a basic project document that systematically and in detail describes the concept of a future game development product.

Game design documentation contains all the information necessary for game development:

• concept and genre;
• plot, game universe and character descriptions;
• target platforms;
• results of target audience analysis;
• features of game mechanics and controls;
• progression and motivation system;
• visual style;
• interface description;
• audio solutions;
• technical requirements and limitations.

This information is used by all team members during their work, including game designers, programmers, screenwriters, artists, producers, and testers.

The main functions of a game design document

• Fixation of the idea and concept - the document clearly formulates the idea, allowing it to be followed at all stages of development.
• A clear and unified understanding of the tasks – a game design document ensures that each development participant understands the goals, mechanics, and requirements, eliminating the risk of rework due to a misunderstanding of the task.
• Planning and control – Game Design Doc for the game helps you create a realistic plan, budget and expectations, meet deadlines, avoid delays and budget overruns.

A game demo can also serve as a visual justification of the project's commercial value when presenting the finished game to investors, partners, and publishers. It can be modified as the project develops, according to feedback and changes in the production process.

We told you more about what the technical specifications for game development includes and why it is necessary to compile it here.

When preparing a game design document, game design specialists at Arionis Games use visualization tools, which simplifies hypothesis testing and the accessibility of all proposed solutions for understanding by all development participants and customer representatives - mockups, diagrams, flowcharts, concept art, video presentations, etc.

During a preliminary consultation, we will study your project, determine how much game design costs to implement the tasks set, and then we will create a game design document and develop a game based on it.

Types of game design used in game development

For small projects, one experienced game designer is usually enough to completely cover the game design tasks. For large-scale RPG games with detailed worlds, several separate specialists may be required. The game design studio Arionis Games successfully works with both simple arcades and multiplayer games.

The main tasks of game designers:

• level and mission design;
• creating a script for a game, a plot;
• development of character dialogues;
• development of game balance and economy;
• gameplay creation;
• work on visual and graphic design (including character design, environment design, interfaces);
• creating an authentic atmosphere of the game universe;
• testing and optimization of the user interface;
• developing balanced game progression and difficulty.

To achieve these goals, game design encompasses five main areas. Both one specialist (if the project is small and simple) and entire teams of specialized game designers for each type of game design (in large-scale games) can work on their development.

1. Game system design

System game design is aimed at creating a game concept and designing its general rules, mechanics and their relationship to each other. A system game designer works on this part of the game. This specialist is responsible for how and why certain game events will occur at the level of game processes:

• thinks through game mechanics and methods of their implementation, key features of the game product (features);
• writes a short synopsis of the plot;
• designs and develops the interconnections of game components and systems;
• analyzes mathematical models, probabilities, and game states for a sustainable balance.

The result of a system game designer's work is a holistic game that provides a deep, multi-level gaming experience, which is especially important in genres such as strategy, simulation, role-playing, sandbox projects, and live service games. This is the foundation on which the game's logic is built.

2. Content design + narrative design

Content design in games is the creation of in-game content that shapes the gaming experience without interfering with the core mechanics. Content designers work on stories, quests, levels, characters, dialogue, items, and events, creating a variety of experiences and progression within the existing game system.

They also work with narrative game designers to develop the density and pace of content delivery – the regularity of new tasks, the formation of plot twists and challenges – so that the gameplay does not “sag”.

Narrative design is the study of the structure, presentation, and integration of the plot into the gameplay. A narrative game designer creates a deep, coherent, and gameplay-integrated story that becomes an organic part of the game universe for players. While game scripting focuses on developing the story, narrative design focuses on how it will be presented and integrated into the gameplay.

For example, don't just write down the dialogue, but think about the context in which it should be played, what player actions trigger it, and what gameplay consequences it might have.

Content and narrative game design enhance emotional engagement and player motivation, making the game world alive, logical, and coherent through non-linear storytelling. This is especially important in large projects like RPGs, MMORPGs, and open-world games. The quality of game content determines the duration of sessions and the players’ desire to return.

3. Level design, level design

Level design is the design of open and linear levels and spaces that the player is immersed in. Variability and variety are important to maintain attention, and the levels are consistent with each other, as well as with the game mechanics and the overall story.

Main objectives:

• logical and exciting route;
• motivating players through environments, gameplay events, and visual cues;
• consistency of mechanics, plot, and environment;
• emotional reaction of players – excitement, fear, tension, triumph, curiosity, etc.

Tasks performed by level designers: planning spaces, placing objects, alternating intense and calm areas, checking cheat paths and balance (to eliminate unauthorized simplification of the game).

4. UX/UI design

UX/UI game design ensures the convenience of players' interaction with the interface and its visual appeal: so that the gameplay is convenient, and all necessary information and controls are accessible and logically located.

Main areas of UX/UI work:

• well-thought-out logic and structure – easy navigation through the menu and inventory, clear feedback (hints, animations, sounds);
• the visual part of the interface – the design of menus and settings screens, pop-up windows, panels, and their convenient location on the screen.

UX/UI game design ensures the adaptability of game development products to different platforms and devices, improves the user experience, and ensures complete immersion in the gameplay.

5. Technical game design

A technical game designer connects game mechanics to the engine, customizing game elements through code or visual scripts, i.e., bringing the concept to life, creating a working, test-ready product. Technical design speeds up the development cycle by allowing you to test mechanics before the project is fully coded.

Main tasks:

• prototyping mechanics in the editor;
• setup and implementation of game systems (physics, AI behavior, etc.);
• working with level logic, parameters, triggers, and interactive objects;
• optimization of gameplay features;
• support for in-game systems (progression, interaction, inventory, etc.).

These areas of game design are often implemented by a single specialist, especially in small projects. In large games, each of them may be worked on by a separate specialist or a dedicated team.

There are also economic, combat design, and metagame design of games for the detailed development of in-game economy, combat, and long-term player motivation outside of sessions, respectively.

The list and specifics of game design areas that need to be developed to implement a project can vary significantly depending on its scale and type.

Where to order game design online

Game design at Arionis Games is performed by experienced game designers of various profiles with many years of experience in joint development of game products in various genres for popular platforms. This ensures the efficiency of production processes, consistency of actions, and consistently high quality of the result.

We offer full-cycle game design development, on a project basis, outstaffing, outsourcing, and services of a dedicated team of IT specialists. To learn more about how we can be useful to you in implementing your idea, contact us via the feedback form.