Basic Video Game Design

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Design a digital technologies outcome - 92007

This section unit is built around Achievement Standard 92007: Design a Digital Technologies Outcome, the external design assessment you’ll complete at the end of the year. AS92007 asks you to plan and document a digital outcome, like the video game you’ll make, by showing your design thinking from start to finish. This includes identifying a need or opportunity, researching who will use your game, developing and refining design ideas, showing how feedback improved your design, and explaining why your final design meets its purpose.

By following the units and activities here, you’ll be well prepared not just to complete AS92007, but to design a thoughtful, user-centred game you can be proud of. This design will then directly feed into your video game project — giving you a clear roadmap from concept to creation.

Important:

If your design work relies heavily on AI with little evidence of your own thinking, justification, or development, you risk Not Achieved. The standard requires you to design the outcome, not to generate it automatically.

More information about AS92007 External

Overview and Teachers Notes

Course Length: Approximately 4 weeks.

AS92007- Design a digital technologies outcome

This course is design to be done in conjugation with the Video Game Outcome (not Web Application). Students will iteratively design the game they plan to produce in the outcome.

Software requirements:

Any Web Browser (eg Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari)

Optional:

Inkscape, GIMP or some other image maniputlaion/drawing software

Suggested Timetable:

Week 1 - Empathise and Define, and Ideation

Week 2/3 - Develop Game Design Document

Week 4 - Feedback and Justification

Understand: Introduction to The Design Process

The Design Process

Teo Yu Siang and Interaction Design Foundation. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

In design thinking, one way of doing things called the "d.school" model from Stanford University. It has five steps:

Empathize: This is like putting yourself in someone else's shoes. You watch, listen, and talk to people to understand who you're designing for and what problem you're trying to solve.

Define: Once you understand the problem and the people involved, you write down a clear statement that describes the challenge. This statement guides your actions.

Ideate: In this step, you and your team come up with as many ideas as possible. You don't judge them right away; you let your creativity flow to find new and creative solutions.

Prototype: Now, you start building a version of your solution. It's okay if it's not perfect at first. You can make changes and try different things. This step doesn't need a lot of time or resources.

Test: After you've made a prototype, you show it to the people who will use it. This helps you understand their needs better and make your solution even better. You keep going through these steps and making improvements until you have a good solution.

Remember, you can go back and forth between these steps, and they don't always have to happen in order. It's all about being flexible and finding the best solution by trying things out and learning along the way.

Part 1: Empathise and Define

Designing your own game

Game Design Document

Your Own GDD

In this document you will compile a portfolio and Game Design Document to guide you through the design process.

Make a copy of this document.

This will be the main document that you will complete for this unit of work.

Use the following resources to help you fill it out more effectively.

There are also some example GDDs that you could look at for some very famous games at the bottom of this page.

What are video games for?

With every technology outcome you need to describe a need or opportunity and potential user.

Read some examples of things that video games have been used for:

EVE Online Players Saved Real-World Scientists 330 Years of Research on COVID-19.

Foldit attempts to apply the human brain’s instinctive abilities to the problem of protein structure prediction.

This project has now been made redundant by AlphaFold

This War of Mine is a gripping survival sim, and a great study of survival during wartime and civil collapse. The game provides an experience of war seen from an entirely new angle.

Minecraft Education has features built specifically for learning environments to support collaboration, assessment, coding, and more.

But for most video games are for entertainment! This is the need you are likely need you are going to fulfill with your game.

General AI may have a hard time exploring these ideas due to the New Zealand context

Step 1: Considering Kaitiakitanga

Complete the worksheets on Manakitanga and Kaitiakitanga.

Using the above resources and what you wrote in you Kaitiakitanga and Manakitanga worksheet to Complete Step 1 of your GDD

Ideation

No AI allowed, as generating design ideas is part of the NZQA standard the student must complete the ideation without the use of AI

Step 2: Ideation

Watch the video by BlackThronProd and start brainstorming some ideas on your document. There are some helpful questions to think about and get your brain going. You are then going to write 3 synopsis for games you could make.

Complete Step 2 in your Game Design Document. Get out some paper and pencils and when you are done scan this into your document.

Game Scope

As your first game it is VERY important to set a good scope for your games. This video goes over some general ideas for what types of games you can make.

Scope - In video game design, refers to the overall size, complexity, and scale of a video game project.

You have come up with some great ideas but what is feasable? Watch the video and look at the lists below so you can start thinking of what you could actually make.

From the Extra Credits video

Suggestions for First Games

Can use the framework from the tutorials in the previous unit

Platformers (Easiest option)
Top Down games
Shoot 'em ups (shmups)

For confident students willing to experiment

Point and Click games
Endless runners
One Mechanic games like:
- Flappy Bird
- Frogger
- Super Hexagon

5 Ways to set yourself up for failure!

Make a multiplayer game.
Not have clear ideas on how the enemy AI will work.
Having a complicated story or characters.
Having more than a handful of different things you need to animate/draw/design.
Insufficient planning.

For your first game you should be aiming to make a game that someone will play for a few minutes and have a good time!

Step 3: Synopsis

Use the above information to come up with three synopsis in your GDD.

Complete Step 3 in your document now.

Step 4: Narrow Down Your Options

Now that you have some ideas it is time to chose one of your options. Below are some videos and further information to help make the decision about which game you should make. Show some manaakitanga, find people to talk to who might give you good feedback. And listen to them to help make your ideas better.

Complete Step 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 in your Game Design Document now

Prototyping

In the next section, you'll create a prortype Game Design Document. We'll call it a propotype, because it is a "work in progress" document and will change as we learn more! Complete Section 5 of your main document now and use the following information to help you fill it out correctly.

By the end of this you'll have a refined GDD that has been improved by feedback.

Work through each section at your own pace using the resources to help you if you need.

AI can be used to develop your GGD as well as generate art to get feedback.

Using AI in Your Art Design (Thoughtfully!)

AI tools can be really useful during the early design stages of your game, especially for exploring ideas quickly, but they work best when used as support, not as a replacement for your own thinking.

Some good ways to use AI art tools:

Turn sketches into concept art - You can upload rough sketches or wireframes and use AI to generate more detailed images. This can help you visualise what your game could look like and refine your ideas before committing to final assets.
Explore variations, not final assets - AI is great for generating lots of different visual directions quickly, which can help you decide what style you like. This can also let you get feedback quickly from stakeholders. Your final design decisions should still be intentional and justified.

Some things to be careful about:

Don’t rely solely on AI - AI can generate convincing images and suggestions, but it doesn’t understand your game, your audience, or your design goals. Treat anything AI produces as a starting point, not a final answer.
Be transparent if you use AI - If you include AI-generated art in your design work, clearly signpost that it was created using AI and include the prompt you used.
Over-reliance on AI can cause you to fail the standard - If your work relies heavily on AI-generated outputs with little evidence of your own ideas, reasoning, or development, then you are not meeting the requirements of the standard.

Used well, AI can help you communicate your ideas more clearly. Used poorly, it can weaken your design thinking. Treat it as a tool, not a shortcut.

Example Sketch

The following AI images were made with Nano Banana Pro.

Idea 1

This is a sketch for a game I want to make. Can you please flesh it out to be a pixel art game with an exploration theme where a mountain climber must climb a mountain in Canada.

Idea 2

Can you please now transform my sketch into a game where you play as a green alien who has to escape from a burning spaceship pixel art style.

Idea 3

Can you please now transform my sketch into a game where you play as a bank robber who has to escape from the police through the back alleys behind a bank pixel art style

Idea 4

Can you modify this bankrobber image to make it more lighthearted. I want it to be as bright and colourful as possible.

Idea 5

Can you please modify it to be more Cthulhu horror.

Step 5.1 Basic Game Information

This is the most straightforward part of the document and should be pretty self-explanitory.

Step 5.2: Game Structure and Game Flow Diagrams

A game flow diagram is like a map that shows the journey a player takes in a video game. It's made up of boxes and arrows. The game flow diagram helps game designers plan how the game will work and helps players understand what to do next. It's like a roadmap that guides you through the adventure of the game! Watch the video for a basic rundown of flow diagrams. After that make your own using Lucid Chart. You can use the example as a guide.

Introduction to flow charts

https://lucid.app/

Example of a game flow diagram

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QWERTY_keyboard_diagram.svg

Green - MovementBlue (E) - InteractYellow - Jump

5.3 Game Controls

Possibly using the keyboard and mouse diagrams on the right layout what the keys in your game will be. It is good practise to use keys that are often used in other games for example movement being WASD and/or arrow keys.

5.4 Camera and User Interface

This video helps you to understand how to sketch up UI for your game.

5.5 Art

Your colour choices are important. This video helps explain what the colours are and how you can use colour to help covey a feeling.

This will help you make good choices for your designs for your characters and scenes. Get sketching!

If you are not a confident artist you can use an art pack either entirely or as a starting point. These are some excellent sources of creative commons or public domain assets. You can check some of these out the bottom of this page.

5.6 Level Design

Sketch out what your levels might look like. This will help you get a better grasp on what could be fun and what could not. You'll understand what the intent of your game is (challenge? exploration?) and it will make it a LOT easier when you start making your first level when it is time to develop it.

5.6 (continued) Enemy AI

Simplest to Most Complex

Stationary

Things like spikes and lava does not need an AI

Linefollow

Simply move backwards and forwards from point to point.

Reactive

For example where a enemy has a detection radius and then chases or runs away.

Proactive

Using a pathfinding algorithm to avoid obstacles and move to changing destinations

5.7 Audio

Sounds and music are one of the best ways to take your game up a notch in terms of aesthetics and game feel. You don't need to make game sounds or music there are plenty with various creative commons licences online. But it can be fun making some sound effects with your phone microphone and a little bit of tinkering in Audacity!

What sounds do you want in your game? List them in section 5.7 of the document now.

5.8 Requirements and Specifications

Requirements and Specifications

The topic is quite hard to grasp and you are going to have to be able to write a clear set of requirements (what someting must do) and specifications (how exactly it's going to do it) for your project idea.

Watch the video to help get a good understanding of the topic and then complete the worksheet below. Make sure you make a copy of the doc and then have a go filling it out. All instructions are inside the document.

Worksheet

What about Game Design Requirements and Specifications?

Requirements

For your game design you should have a requirement that explains:

What type of game is it going to be?
What theme or setting will the game be in?
What obsticles or challenges will the player have to overcome?

Specifications

Specifications are super-detailed descriptions of a video game. They tell us exactly how the game should work and what it will look like:

What colour pallete is your game going to use?
What sound effects?
What controls is it going to use?

4.9 Resources

What do you HAVE to make this game, what people, what skills do they have, how much time, what software, hardware etc. This helps you to judge if a game is in scope (ie do-able with the given resources)

Think hard about this and list them all in section 5.9 of your game design document.

Part 6: Testing and Feedback

Giving and Using Feedback

The most important rule when asking for feedback on design work is to give people something concrete to respond to.

It’s very hard for someone to imagine alternatives in their head, so instead of asking “Do you like this?”, show options. For example, present your main character in a few different colours or styles and ask which works best and why.

This stage is also an opportunity to demonstrate manaakitanga: respectfully seeking, listening to, and valuing the ideas of others.

Share your GDD with friends, whānau, classmates, or teachers, and listen carefully to the suggestions they make about how your design could be improved. You do not need to use all the feedback you receive, but you should show that you considered it and explain why you chose to act on some suggestions and not others.

Once you’ve gathered feedback, act on it:

Make changes and improvements to your GDD.

Use strikethrough for ideas or sections you decide to remove.
Highlight or clearly mark new content that was added as a result of feedback.

This makes it easy to show, in the exam, how feedback influenced your design decisions, which is a key part of the standard.

Complete Section 6 of your Game Design Document (GDD) now.

Part 7: Evaluations

Evaluating and Justifying your final design

Justifying Your Design (Using Evidence)

Next, you’ll need to justify your design choices with evidence — in other words, explain why your game design is going to be awesome, and back that up with proof.

Ask yourself:

How does your game fit the theme?
How does it address the relevant implications?
How will it meet the needs of your target audience?
How does your design show manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga?

From the NCEA Glossary:

Justify – To support an argument or conclusion with evidence.

Your evidence might include:

Research to support your decisions, such as examples of similar games, genre conventions, or player expectations. This could come from websites, videos, articles, or reviews. Make sure you keep a bibliography of your sources.
Feedback you’ve received from others (classmates, teachers, play-testers), especially where you have used that feedback to improve your design.
Design decisions you can explain clearly, showing how your ideas evolved over time.

The stronger and clearer your evidence is here, the better prepared you’ll be for the external exam, as this is exactly the kind of thinking and explanation AS92007 is assessing.

Complete Section 7 of your Game Design Document (GDD) now.

You have now completed your first GDD! Congratulations!

Extra Resources for GDDs

A Game Design Document (GDD) is super-detailed plan document that tells you define everything you need to know when making a particular video game. It has all the important details about how the game should look and work. It helps the people working on the game understand the game's idea, rules, and how it's supposed to work.

Game designers are the ones who usually make this plan, and it's like the base or starting point for everyone involved in making the game. This is then used by everyone; programmers, artists, writers, level designers, musicians, and project managers to work collaborativly. If everyone knows what the game should be, they can all work together to make sure the game ends up like it's supposed to.