Experiences with design patterns for oldschool action games

Abstract

This article discusses the application of an Alexandrian pattern language to the design of interactive systems. It grew out of an University course titled A Pattern Approach to Action Game Design, which was offered as an elective in the Creative Technologies program at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, in 2011. We sketch out the idea of design patterns and describe our experiences with the process of using them for designing oldschool action games, that is, finding patterns, making a language, using it for creating several game designs and realizing one of these designs collaboratively. We discuss the concept of the course and present our pattern language and the game we made. While the language is arguably more like a patchy pattern collection, the various game designs quite loose and the realized game unfinished, the process was challenging and intense, and offered students a new perspective on design. In the spirit of design patterns, we only did what the task at hand required, not artificial exercises. We attempted to connect theory and practice in a natural, direct way as we presented, discussed and used everything we did in order to continue our journey. Our course was not aimed at fixed or frozen products, but on a process that was constantly in flux through collaboration by people who interact and share a common pattern language, use, test, revise and refine it while moving on.

A multi-level level generator

“…Björk and Holopainen later applied the ideas of design pattern to game design, listing hundreds of generic game design patterns in an influential book [9,10]. Several authors have further identified a number of game design patterns in specific game genres [11,12,13,14].…”

Procedural Content Generation Using Patterns as Objectives

“…In the context of games have Björk and Holopainen suggested an extensive collection of patterns for game design [8]. Similarly, others have looked into game mechanics [9] and specific game contexts like FPSs [10], RPGs [11], and action games [12]. There have also been some attempts to formulate abstract level design patterns that can be specialised to concrete metrics for different level types [13].…”