What Are Your Projects Design Pillars? by Caryn Vainio Design Bits

Table Of Content

• Main menu
• [VC FUNDED STARTUP] SnackPass: Social food ordering platform with 500k active users $400m+ valuation
• Introduction to Statistics for Machine Learning
• Now you know what business design actually is, are you ready to put it front and centre in your business?
• Make a Game You’re Proud Of
• EXPERIENCE
• Principles of design FAQ

Let’s begin with a potential game idea, assuming that you’ve just started creating a new game. What is the player going to do, and how are they going to do it? The best way to tackle these problems is to keep your ideas as simple as possible, and the most effective way to achieve that is by figuring out the Core Mechanic of the game.

Main menu

The relationship between Joel and Ellie is a core narrative element of the game and the experience in The Last of Us. There are many ways to answer this but the one method I want us to focus on today in this post is the games ‘Pillars’. In a previous post, I discussed how important documentation is during the development of the game’s creation. I discuss how important it is for you as a developer to find the core of your game.

[VC FUNDED STARTUP] SnackPass: Social food ordering platform with 500k active users $400m+ valuation

White space isn't just empty; it helps organize and create hierarchy. White space around an element has always been related to aesthetics in viewers. It informs our eyes that objects in one area are separated from objects in other areas. If you stick to two or three solid typefaces or colors, you'll quickly see that you'll have to repeat some elements. Don't you think it will sound like an error if just one thing on your band poster is in blue italic sans-serif?

Introduction to Statistics for Machine Learning

AI has made massive strides in design, offering innovative solutions that are changing the way we create and perceive art. Movement is the way your eye travels through the design, guided by lines, shapes, and colors. It’s like a well-choreographed dance, leading the viewer from one point to another seamlessly. Think of a smooth circle surrounded by rough squares, a small object next to a large one, a bright background with dark objects, as seen below.

What are the 8 pillars of business design?

What about a game with visual feedback, where the only for it interaction is pressing ‘x’ to play a sound, is that a game? Many distinctions made about “what makes a game a game” are largely benign, but these pillars seem to serve as solid definitions that most can agree on. Essentially, my “Design Goals” technique is a way of reminding myself of what the pillars are in the project I’m working on, and the idea can be extended to whole products. Sometimes you will discover certain elements are more valuable than others.

Now you know what business design actually is, are you ready to put it front and centre in your business?

What works for one, can be useless for others, so it’s important to dig deeper into the intent behind your design, rather prior to entering a game engine. With that being said, feedback is a universal term for showing or telling the player that the action they have taken has had some sort of effect. In games for entertainment, This could be something as simple as a dent in a wall after being hit with a bullet, or as complex as a complex particle system after casting powerful spells. Additionally, feedback can come in the form of music playing when the player enters a safe zone, growls when a hostile enemy enters your line of sight, or any number of visual, audio, or kinesthetic cues.

Make a Game You’re Proud Of

However, focusing on the function creates a ‘tunnel-visioned’ frame of thinking resulting in a lack of integration with the broader set of game systems and mechanics. There’s a lot of variation here, but let’s use God of War as an example, since it’s design pillars that are just the names of independent systems. Proportion is about the relationship between the size of one element to another, the space between those elements, or the number of elements used. A well-proportioned design feels right and comfortable to the eye.

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Educational games may use feedback as a way to let students know how well they are doing on a current subject or to continue to encourage progress. A Bordelands 2 Game Pillar is easily massive amounts of loot and rewards. The developers wanted the player to be showered with items so he could compare them, pick his favorites, and change his equipment often to have a feeling of improvement and progress. They contain features rather than values, and they’re fairly generic feature sets which almost any game would want to live up to. A great example of this two-pronged approach is applied by Paradox Games across their different games.

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'Unpacking' the design pillars of a chill puzzle game.

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The practical use of design pillars was something that has been on my mind for a while, so I was glad to be able to discuss it in depth here today. Ironically, what the player isn’t allowed to do often defines their experiences, and helps to make games more captivating. Imagine if Trucking simulators allowed you to wage war on Alien forces, as fun as that may sound, players who like trucking simulators may be turned off completely from their favorite series.

Without them, the project could risk “feature creep,” gluing on more and more mechanics that lose focus and cause delays. Modern AAA Games tend to solve this problem by following an approach called design pillars. The creative director picks out distinct guiding principles for the game, and these serve as a guiding beacon for everyone below them. Another way to think about the pillars is that they act as filters. If your design team would like to add a feature, the pillars can be used to determine if the feature is a good fit or not. Of course, other considerations like time and budget will come into play, but even if you had unlimited resources, if a feature doesn't agree with the pillars, then its shouldn't be added.