Chapter 2 Exercises: What Is a Game Designer?

Exercise 1: Reverse-Engineering a Game's Design

Type: Analytical play Time: 45-60 minutes

Choose a game you have played extensively. It can be any game --- board game, video game, card game, sport. Play it for at least 15 minutes (or recall a recent play session in detail).

Now reverse-engineer its design by answering the following:

  1. Core mechanic: What is the single most important thing the player does? Describe it in one sentence.
  2. Supporting mechanics: List 3-5 additional mechanics that support or interact with the core mechanic.
  3. Key dynamic: Describe one emergent behavior that arises from the interaction of two or more mechanics. (Remember: a dynamic is something that players do that the designer did not directly implement but that the mechanics produce.)
  4. Aesthetic target: What is the primary emotional experience the game is trying to create? Use LeBlanc's eight aesthetics (sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, submission) as a starting vocabulary, but feel free to be more specific.
  5. MDA chain: Trace one complete chain from a specific mechanic, to the dynamic it produces, to the aesthetic it creates.

Write 1-2 paragraphs for each answer. When you are done, you will have a design analysis of a game that goes deeper than any review.

Here is an abbreviated example to demonstrate the depth expected:

Game: Hades

  1. Core mechanic: The player fights through rooms of enemies using a combination of a main attack, a special attack, a cast, and a dash, each of which can be modified by randomized boon upgrades between rooms.

  2. Supporting mechanics: (a) The boon system --- gods offer randomized upgrades that modify your attacks. (b) The death-and-return loop --- dying sends you back to the hub, but permanent upgrades carry over. (c) The mirror of night --- a permanent upgrade system that lets the player grow stronger across runs. (d) NPC relationships --- gifting nectar to characters unlocks conversations and keepsakes.

  3. Key dynamic: The boon system combined with randomized room layouts creates a dynamic of adaptive build-crafting. The player does not choose a build in advance --- they discover it during the run based on which boons appear. This means the player must evaluate each boon offer in the context of what they already have, creating a chain of tactical decisions that makes every run feel unique.

  4. Aesthetic target: Challenge (the combat) combined with narrative (the relationships) combined with discovery (each run reveals new boon combinations). The unusual achievement of Hades is that it uses the roguelike death loop --- typically a pure challenge aesthetic --- to deliver narrative progression.

  5. MDA chain: Mechanic: dying returns the player to the hub with progress on NPC dialogue. Dynamic: the player begins to look forward to dying, because death advances relationships and reveals story. Aesthetic: death feels like narrative progress rather than failure, which eliminates the frustration typical of roguelikes and replaces it with curiosity about what comes next.

Your analysis does not need to be this long for each answer, but it should demonstrate this level of specificity. Avoid vague statements like "the game feels good" --- explain what feels good and why.

📝 Note: This is the single most valuable exercise a designer can do, and it is free. Every game you play is a design textbook. The difference between playing for fun and playing analytically is the difference between watching a movie and studying cinematography. Both are valid. But if you want to be a designer, you need to do both.

Exercise 2: The One-Page Design Concept Document

Type: Design practice Time: 30-45 minutes

Write a one-page design concept document for a game you want to make. This is the document described in Section 2.10. Use the five-question format:

  1. What is the game? (One sentence.)
  2. What does the player do? (Core actions, 2-3 sentences.)
  3. What makes it fun? (The aesthetic target, 2-3 sentences.)
  4. Who is it for? (Target audience, 2-3 sentences. Name specific games they might already enjoy.)
  5. What is the scope? (Be honest and specific about what one person can build.)

Constraints: - One page maximum. If it does not fit on one page, you are overdesigning. - No feature lists. This is not a pitch deck. It describes an experience, not a product. - No technology requirements. Do not write about what engine you'll use or what art style you'll choose. Those decisions come later. This document is about what the player feels.

After writing it, read it out loud. If you cannot explain the game to a friend in 60 seconds using only this document, revise until you can.

Common mistakes to avoid: - Describing features instead of experiences. "The game has a crafting system with 200 recipes" tells you nothing about how the game feels. "The player experiments with combining materials, discovering recipes through trial and error, which creates a feeling of scientific discovery" tells you everything. - Scope creep in a concept document. If you find yourself writing "and also" more than twice, you are adding features, not describing an experience. Cut until the concept fits on one page. - Vague audience targeting. "For gamers who like fun games" is useless. "For players who enjoyed Hollow Knight's exploration and Celeste's tight controls but want something shorter and less punishing" is actionable.

Exercise 3: MDA Analysis

Type: Analytical Time: 30-40 minutes

Apply the MDA framework to three games from the list below (or substitute your own):

  • Tetris
  • Dark Souls
  • Animal Crossing: New Horizons
  • Among Us
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  • Stardew Valley
  • Celeste
  • Pokémon (any mainline entry)

For each game, identify:

  1. Three mechanics --- specific rules or systems the designer built
  2. Two dynamics --- emergent behaviors that arise from those mechanics interacting with each other or with the player
  3. Two aesthetics --- emotional experiences the game produces (use LeBlanc's eight categories as a starting point, but be specific)
  4. One MDA chain --- trace a single path from one mechanic through the dynamic it creates to the aesthetic it produces

Then answer these synthesis questions:

  • Which of the three games has the widest gap between the simplicity of its mechanics and the richness of its dynamics? What does this tell you about the relationship between complexity and depth?
  • Across all three games, which of LeBlanc's eight aesthetics appears most frequently? Why do you think this aesthetic is so common?
  • Did you discover any mechanics that serve multiple aesthetics simultaneously? If so, describe how a single mechanic produces different emotional responses in different contexts.

This exercise takes time, but the payoff is disproportionate. Once you can perform MDA analysis fluently, you will see every game differently. You will stop asking "is this game fun?" and start asking "what specific mechanical-dynamic-aesthetic chain is producing this feeling?" That shift in perspective is the difference between a player and a designer.

Exercise 4: The Idea Autopsy

Type: Reflective / analytical Time: 20-30 minutes

Think of a game idea you have had --- the cooler and more ambitious, the better. Maybe it was an open-world RPG. Maybe it was a multiplayer survival game. Maybe it was "basically Breath of the Wild but with mechs."

Now perform an autopsy on the idea by answering these questions:

  1. What is the core mechanic? (What does the player actually do second to second?)
  2. What is the core loop? (What repeated cycle of actions keeps the player engaged?)
  3. Can you prototype the core mechanic in less than a week using basic tools?
  4. What are the three biggest technical challenges?
  5. What is the team size and timeline needed to build this at a minimum viable level?
  6. Name two games that tried something similar. What worked? What failed?
  7. If you had to cut 80% of the features, which 20% would you keep?

The purpose of this exercise is not to kill your idea. It is to distinguish the idea (which is easy and fun) from the execution plan (which is hard and often reveals that the idea needs significant revision). If your idea survives this autopsy with a clear core mechanic and a feasible scope, you might actually have something worth prototyping.

Pay particular attention to question 7. The 80/20 cut is brutal but illuminating. If you cannot identify the 20% that makes your game worth playing, you do not yet understand what your game is. The features you keep when forced to cut everything else are your core. Everything else is decoration.

💀 Design Autopsy: A cautionary example: No Man's Sky launched in 2016 with a vast galaxy of procedurally generated planets --- and almost nothing to do on them. The idea (explore an infinite universe) was extraordinary. The execution at launch revealed that "explore" is not a mechanic --- it is an aesthetic that must be produced by mechanics. Hello Games spent years post-launch adding the mechanics (base building, multiplayer, missions, NPC relationships) that the idea needed to become a game. The idea was always great. The initial execution was not. The autopsy would have revealed this: "What does the player actually do second to second on each planet?"

Exercise 5: Designer or Idea Person?

Type: Comparative analysis Time: 20 minutes

Read the following two descriptions of a game concept and determine which was written by a designer and which was written by an "idea person." Explain your reasoning.

Concept A: "An open-world fantasy RPG set in a world where magic is powered by music. Players can create and combine musical spells by playing instruments. The world is vast and beautiful, with hundreds of unique creatures, a deep crafting system, dynamic weather, and a branching storyline where every choice matters. Multiplayer co-op so you can form a band with friends. Revolutionary AI that responds to your music in real time."

Concept B: "A rhythm-action game where the player's attacks are timed to a musical beat. The core mechanic: tap in rhythm to attack; miss the beat and your attack whiffs. Enemies telegraph attacks on the beat, creating a reading-and-reacting loop. Initial prototype: one room, one enemy type, one weapon, one song. Target experience: the player feels like their combat IS the music. Reference: Crypt of the NecroDancer meets Devil May Cry."

After identifying which is which, rewrite Concept A as a designer would --- keep the core fantasy but make it specific, prototypable, and scoped.

Some hints for the rewrite: What is the one mechanic that makes music-powered magic work? What does the player do on a second-to-second basis? If you had one room, one spell, and one enemy, what would the prototype look like? What is the minimum viable version of this game that would tell you whether the core idea is fun?

Your rewritten concept should be no longer than Concept B. Brevity is a design skill.

Exercise 6: Observation Practice

Type: Analytical play Time: 30-40 minutes

Play any game for 20 minutes. During play, keep a notepad (physical or digital) next to you and make notes every time you notice a design decision. Not a story beat. Not a visual detail. A design decision --- a moment where you can see the designer's hand.

Examples of what to look for: - How does the game teach you a new mechanic? (Tutorial text? Level design? Trial and error?) - Where does the camera point? Is the camera guiding your attention? - What feedback do you get when you succeed? When you fail? - How is difficulty managed? Does it escalate? Are there difficulty spikes? - What does the UI communicate? What does it hide? - Where are the save points? Why are they placed where they are?

After 20 minutes of play, write a one-page analysis organized around your notes. The goal is to practice articulating design observations --- moving from "this feels good" to "this feels good because."

Aim for at least 10 observations in 20 minutes. If you are finding fewer than that, you are not looking closely enough. Every screen, every interaction, every moment of a shipped game is the result of a design decision. The camera angle is a decision. The font size is a decision. The color of the health bar is a decision. The time between pressing the jump button and the character leaving the ground is a decision. Nothing in a game is accidental. Your job in this exercise is to see the decisions.

🔄 Check Your Understanding: After completing this exercise, you should be able to answer: what is the difference between a player and a designer playing the same game? The player asks "is this fun?" The designer asks "why is this fun, and what would happen if this specific element were different?"

Exercise 7: Design Discipline Mapping

Type: Analytical Time: 20-25 minutes

Choose a game you know well. For each of the six design disciplines listed below, identify one specific element of the game that falls under that discipline's responsibility:

  1. Systems design --- a rule, formula, or mathematical relationship
  2. Level design --- a space, layout, or environmental structure
  3. Narrative design --- a story element, dialogue, or narrative mechanic
  4. Combat design --- an action system element (attack, defense, timing, enemy behavior)
  5. Economy design --- a resource, currency, trade, or progression system
  6. UX design --- a menu, HUD element, control mapping, or accessibility feature

For each, explain why it works --- what design problem does it solve? How does it contribute to the player experience?

Then answer: which discipline is doing the most work in this game? Which is doing the least? Does the balance between disciplines match the game's aesthetic goals?

For example: in Celeste, combat design is almost nonexistent (there are no enemies to fight in the traditional sense), while level design and systems design carry the majority of the player experience. This makes sense --- Celeste is a precision platformer, not an action game. The discipline balance matches the aesthetic goals. If you find a game where the discipline balance doesn't match the aesthetic goals, you have found a design flaw worth analyzing.

Exercise 8: The Feedback Audit

Type: Analytical play Time: 20 minutes

Choose an action game (Celeste, Hades, Hollow Knight, DOOM, any platformer or action game). Play for 10 minutes with the sound on, paying attention to feedback. Then mute the game and play for 10 minutes more.

Write a comparison: 1. What information did you lose when you muted the game? 2. What actions felt less satisfying without audio feedback? 3. Were there any moments where visual feedback compensated for the missing audio? 4. How did the absence of sound affect your performance? Did you play worse? Make more mistakes? 5. What does this tell you about the role of audio in game design?

This exercise is designed to make the invisible visible. Sound design is one of the most underrated aspects of game design, and you often don't notice it until it's gone.

If you want to push this further, try the reverse: turn off your monitor (or cover the screen) and play using only sound for five minutes. What can you understand about the game state purely from audio? In a well-designed game, sound communicates far more than most players realize --- enemy positions, health status, environmental hazards, the proximity of important objects. If you can play the game (even badly) with your eyes closed, the audio design is doing serious work.

Exercise 9: The Tradeoff Matrix

Type: Design thinking Time: 25-30 minutes

Every design decision involves tradeoffs. For each of the following design decisions, identify what is gained and what is lost:

  1. Adding a minimap to an exploration game (gained: navigation clarity; lost: ???)
  2. Making the player character speak in full sentences versus being a silent protagonist
  3. Adding permadeath (losing all progress on death) to a roguelike
  4. Allowing the player to pause during combat in a real-time action game
  5. Showing enemy health bars versus hiding them
  6. Making a game's world open from the start versus gating areas behind progression

For each, write 2-3 sentences explaining the tradeoff. There is no right answer --- the "correct" choice depends on the game's aesthetic goals. But being able to articulate both sides of a tradeoff is a core design skill.

After completing all six, choose one and go deeper: write a full paragraph arguing for the tradeoff as implemented in a specific game, and then a full paragraph arguing for the opposite choice in a different game. The goal is to demonstrate that the same design decision can be right in one context and wrong in another --- and that understanding the context is what makes you a designer.

🎯 Tradeoff Spotlight: The best design decisions are not the ones that give the player everything. They are the ones where the designer chose one thing over another for a specific reason. Dark Souls does not show objective markers on the map. This loses navigation clarity but gains exploration and discovery. That tradeoff is the game.

Exercise 10: Famous Designer Research

Type: Research Time: 40-60 minutes

Choose one game designer from the following list (or find your own):

  • Shigeru Miyamoto
  • Hideo Kojima
  • Will Wright
  • Sid Meier
  • Kim Swift
  • Fumito Ueda
  • Soren Johnson
  • Jenova Chen
  • Masahiro Sakurai
  • Amy Hennig

Research their career and design philosophy. Then write a one-page profile covering:

  1. Key games: List 3-5 games they designed or directed.
  2. Design philosophy: What principles guide their work? (Use interviews, GDC talks, and postmortems as sources.)
  3. Signature mechanic or approach: What is the one thing they are best known for?
  4. MDA alignment: Based on LeBlanc's eight aesthetics, which aesthetic(s) do their games primarily target?
  5. What you learned: What is one design principle from this designer that you want to apply to your own work?

Exercise 11: Redesign a Bad Tutorial

Type: Design practice Time: 25-35 minutes

Find a game with a bad tutorial --- a game that explains its mechanics through text boxes, pop-ups, or mandatory instructions that interrupt play. (Most AAA games from the last decade will have at least one offending section.)

Now redesign the tutorial using only level design and mechanics. No text. No pop-ups. No narration. The player must learn the mechanic through interacting with the environment.

Write your redesign as a sequence of 3-5 "rooms" or "scenarios," describing: - What the player sees when they enter the space - What the space invites them to do - What happens when they do it - What they learn from the result

Portal is the gold standard for this approach. The first test chamber teaches you that portals exist by placing you in a room with a portal already open --- you see yourself through it. No text explains what a portal is. The room shows you. Design your tutorial the same way: show, don't tell.

Principles to guide your redesign: - Isolate one concept per room. Each room should teach exactly one thing. If you need to teach three concepts, design three rooms. - Make the desired action the obvious action. If the room requires the player to jump, make the gap between platforms the only way forward. The player should not have to guess what they are supposed to do --- only how to do it. - Let failure teach. If the player tries the wrong approach and fails, the failure should communicate why it was wrong. In Super Mario Bros., running into a Goomba kills you --- which teaches you that Goombas are dangerous. The failure is the lesson. - Reward success immediately. When the player performs the correct action, the game should respond with clear, positive feedback --- a door opens, a path is revealed, a satisfying sound plays. The reward confirms that the player has learned the concept.

🛠️ Design Exercise: After writing your redesign, compare it to the original bad tutorial. Which version communicates the mechanic more clearly? Which version is more fun to experience? In almost every case, the level-design approach wins on both counts --- and it does so without interrupting the player's flow with text boxes.

Exercise 12: Your Design Values Statement

Type: Reflective Time: 15-20 minutes

Section 2.8 introduced the designer's responsibility --- the idea that designers build systems that influence human behavior, and that this power comes with ethical obligations.

Write a half-page "design values statement" --- a personal document that articulates what you believe about game design. Answer these questions:

  1. What do you think games should do for the player?
  2. What design practices do you consider unethical, and why?
  3. What is the difference between a game that is engaging and a game that is exploitative?
  4. What kind of games do you want to make?

This is not an assignment to be graded. It is a reference document for yourself. When you are three years into your career and someone asks you to design a loot box system, your design values statement will help you decide whether that is work you want to do.

Your design values will evolve. That is expected. But having a starting position --- even one you later revise --- gives you a foundation for ethical reasoning about your work. Designers without articulated values tend to default to whatever the business asks for. Designers with values make conscious choices about where they draw lines.