Ideas are more important than technology: a British teacher spoke about the principles of teaching game design
Adam Martin teaches game design at the University of South Wales. He talked about what he considers the most important thing in the training of future game builders.
Creating games is teamwork
According to Adam, the creation of games in most cases does not look like a creative feat of a lone artist. Teamwork gives a better result than individual efforts, and also develops interaction skills and promotes the exchange of ideas.
His group from the very beginning of training is divided into teams of 6 − 8 people who work on their projects during the first six months.
“The most important thing at this stage is for the participants to learn how to negotiate and get along with each other. Your ideas will be evaluated, discussed and tested. If something suddenly doesn’t work, it’s not someone’s fault, but the way in which good design solutions are found,” says Martin.
It is necessary to teach the principles of design, not ready-made technology
Martin says that the course has a fundamental principle: it teaches how to develop and design game design, and not rely on ready-made solutions.
According to the teacher, everything starts with the seed of an idea that can arise from anywhere. The next step is to develop this idea. This does not necessarily involve drawing up a roadmap with a list of stages.
“Imagine this process as peeling an onion in reverse order. You take the basic idea and layer gameplay mechanics and other components of a video game on it,” explained Adam Martin.
According to him, finding a strong idea is a fundamental task in game design, especially for independent developers who usually do not have the resources to spend them on non-working game models.
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