[ 6] To my knowledge the method with the future maps (albeit not called this name) was created by Lars Erik Homlquist and Ramia Mazé.

you would like to use.

Gameplay design patterns can be used as a starting point for game design. Pick two or three and set them as a requirement; the game must include these in some way. Interestingly, several groups using the same patterns will still come up with very different games. For instance, I ran a workshop in which three groups designed games using the pattern Real-Time Game and either cooperation, espionage, or a team or outdoor game [ 9]. The result was one mobile phone game about a race across the polar regions, another mobile phone game played in the city that was now populated by monsters and treasures, and one Pictionary-like camera game.

• These (plus some dice) were the components I provided for the first creative constraints workshop I organized. When designing the components, I thought the coupling between the colors on the cards and the colors on the boards was too obvious, but not all groups used this connection. In addition, all groups but one got typical player pieces (like the ones to the right), but I did not have enough, so one group got small sturdy cylinders instead. Sure enough, they used the fact that these could be stacked!

[ 7] See special issue on ubiquitous gaming: S. Björk, J. Holopainen, P. Ljungstrand, and K.P. Åkesson, “Designing Ubiquitous Computing Games - A Report from a Workshop Exploring Ubiquitous Computing Entertainment,” Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 6, no. 5 and 6 (December 2002).

Creative Constraints

In this exercise the participants receive constraints in forms of components (if they are going to design a board game) or graphics (for a computer game). They must use only some, not all of the components. Again, different groups will come up with very different ideas.

Here, the choice of components will affect design more than you can believe. Small things like color (coding) may matter a lot, as may things like different shapes, so it is worth designing or choosing these with care.

[ 8] To read more about gameplay design patterns and get a full collection, check out Björk and Holopainen, Patterns in Game Design, Boston: Charles River Media, 2005.

What to Use When and the Art of Providing Inspiration The methods I describe have their own pros and cons. “Redo it right” is by far the easiest for non-experienced gamers, because there is an existing set of rules. “Gameplay design patterns” is the most complex tool;

it takes time to get to know, but as any other comprehensive tool (the collection contains more than 200 patters), it is very useful once mastered.

“D6” and “creative constraints” are much each other’s opposites, D6 being very free, while creative constraints can be very limited, depending on how many components you provide and how many have to be used. Having tried out both in several cases, I would say D6 works slightly better—when trying it on a class of interaction designers and game designers, some four games out of 14 were promising. I’ve tried creative constraints only as a game design competition with time pressure added, which does not work well; this task may work better if the participants can review the material beforehand. On the other hand, most of the material is already designed, so the focus is much more on

actually designing the gameplay than making the perfect components, as in D6.

Actually, there is an imminent risk that prototyping or programming issues may interfere with gameplay design. This can be countered either by sticking to lo-fi prototypes and/ or bodystorming if necessary, or by involving experienced programmers, or by limiting the scope to designing board or card games only. Also, you must be a bit cautious in what materials you choose to display; D6 and creative constraints are highly dependent on what prototyping material you provide as inspiration. The others, not so much. It all comes down to what type of game you want—for instance, if you provide dice markers, etc., you will most likely get a board game. In order to skew the ideas toward, say, a live action game, you will have to provide more everyday-life things—props like

[ 9] See S. Lundgren,
“Facets of Fun:
The design of
Computer Augmented
Entertainment Artifacts,”
Master’s thesis,
Chalmers University
of Technology and
Göteborg University,
2006, 145-153. <http://
www.cs.chalmers.
se/~lundsus/publica-
tions.html>