Different instructors approach game design in different ways. If you think of game design as a study, then there are different schools of thoughts with their own principles and methodologies.

 

Taking one mechanic and building around it is one principle. This is a very strong principle: many games are based on it. Almost every casual game in existence is based on it. When you break a game down into individual mechanics (which some people call the "minimal viable product"), that's all it is: a set of mechanics that acts as the foundation for athe rest of the eye candy that makes it look different from every other game out there.

 

Sure, you can throw in hundreds of mechanics into a game. There is nothing wrong with that. just like how in cooking you can put hundreds of ingredients together and hope it turns out well.

 

When you go to school, what you are learning are principles and methodologies in a structured manner, potentially from someone who has some insights into the industry (and likely even works in the industry at this very moment), along with some practical skills.

 

I'm sure someone that has this all figured out and has successfully produced big hits could land a job in top gamedev companies without degrees or diplomas.

 

I don't know whether school is something that's supposed to prepare people for the world. If that's how you see it then perhaps it can be considered a scam. I've always thought of school as a place where you can pursue intellectual desires with others that have the same interests, but nowadays it just looks like a lot of schools treat it as a cash cow.

I've gone through a year long intensive program now, and I can say that from it at least, there's very little you learn that would actually change the format of your game, it's mostly all just about methodologies, best practices, and a lot of pitfalls. "Show the player the door, before you give them the key." "This is what Z-fighting is." "Use normals maps from high poly meshes, but use low poly meshes for in-game." "This is what a QA test plan is." "Argl~ Flargl~ Hero's Journey".

 

You point out movies and books. Learning to read is fairly strong requirement for writing a story and getting it published. While not to the same degree, learning camera shots in film school, as well as learning what a paper plan is, both give educated creators a significant head start over creators that don't know those things before they're made.

 

Narbacular Drop is a student game that was looking for a good grade. You know what's pretty much required for a student game to get good grades? A short game, no longer than 15 minutes, that does something neat. Exploring a mechanic to it's fullest is the best and easiest way to do this. After all, it shows good design - no two ways around it.

Of course, it doesn't have to be like that. My team's student game was a linear action-horror game in Unreal 4 with 1 gun, 1 monster type, and an emphasis on atmosphere and set pieces (we won best final game). Having already worked on that student game, and having gone to school, isn't going to change my decisions though in now deciding to do RPG Maker games on the side - it just helps me not make as many mistakes. I think the same applies to those guys now at Valve.

 

Also... Dwarf Fortress began pre-production in 2004, and is still going in development today...

A constant 9 years development on ANYTHING will see it full of mechanics that are completely extraneous to the "minimum viable product". The results might also be pretty mixed.

Well... Yeah I guess all that makes a lot of sense.

 

I admit I made lots of assumptions about things. Plus I was kind of shoving to the side different aspects of game design not actually related to design when I was discussing the courses. I mean practical and technical stuff like programing, project planning, QA testing, graphics, and all that. I just figured all those subjects would kinda be their own courses, or at least should. There are tons and tons of subjects related to actually teaching people how to make games. And I don't at all thing studying this stuff is at all a waste of time!

 

But, I mean, I always feel kind of weird talking about "design" because it just seems like a kind of nebulous subjective thing. There are techniques for how to solve problems, and for how to bring a design to fruition, but it always seems weird applying that logic to planning what you want to do in the first place. Of course there are good designs and bad designs, but it always seems more a matter if how you implement it and how design elements interfere with each other.

 

But hey, if the class on game design is just talking about how common design elements work together and such and trying to think critically about it, that's fine with me. It's when people start saying "this is how games work" where I get skeptical.

 

Also: Collage can be used to do learning for learning's sake, and really that is probably how it should be used. But it's just too much of a closed system, and too much of a money sink. Wikipedia and Google provably work well enough if you just want to know about stuff, but if you want to be able to actually do it it's probably better if someone teaches you.

 

Also also: Dwarf Fortress is messy by design though, not simply because it is in development for a long time. I think a good counter-example might be NetHack. It has been in development since 1987 and is comparatively tight on mechanics. Instead of adding more and more mechanics, NetHack mostly seems to focus on thinking of really clever implications of those mechanics. For example, one kind of monster turns you to stone on touch. If you kill it and try and pick up the body you will also turn to stone, unless you are waring gloves. If you are blind you feel things on the floor to see what they are. If you aren't wearing gloves and that monster's body is on the floor that will count as touching it. All sorts of little details like that, little subtle interactions between mechanics rather then a lot of new big mechanics. It's actually really interesting how much you can get away with with a few commands if you really plan out all the different implications of how things interact.

After doing some reading in the Theory and Development section, *ahem*, I think I understand why you made this post.

Hehe... Maybe it was a bit misguided though.

It's when people start saying "this is how games work" where I get skeptical.

Which is fine.

 

Some people believe that there are formulas to success, and once you find the formula, it will work as long as you follow it.

 

And maybe there is.

Think of it this way, You take a course, It takes up as much time as a full-time job.  On top of that, you have 4 months to complete a game from scratch.  Oh wait, no you don't - you havn't learned enough to make it till half way through the course.  You have 2 months to make a full game from scratch in your spare time.  You are a logical thinker who can't write well.  You stick to your strengths - mechanics, not storyline.  This is the sad situation for these game creation classes.

Which is fine.

 

Some people believe that there are formulas to success, and once you find the formula, it will work as long as you follow it.

 

And maybe there is.

Thing is, there are formulas to success, more or less. The problem is what those formulas are rely a lot on what axioms you are using, and also that you can define success in different ways. Designing different types of things with different goals in mind have different formulas. Teaching methodology is fine if that is how it works. Just teaching the formulas themselves and expecting everyone to follow them is another. That is all I am saying.

 

Think of it this way, You take a course, It takes up as much time as a full-time job.  On top of that, you have 4 months to complete a game from scratch.  Oh wait, no you don't - you havn't learned enough to make it till half way through the course.  You have 2 months to make a full game from scratch in your spare time.  You are a logical thinker who can't write well.  You stick to your strengths - mechanics, not storyline.  This is the sad situation for these game creation classes.

Makes sense to me. That said, I was not even complaining about lack of storyline, I was just saying most student games I have seen are very singularly focused. If most student games I have seen had been focused wholly on story I would have said the same thing. It's interesting to compare student games to gamejam games, which seem to have a lot more verity. Though granted I have seen a ton more game jam games then student games so that could be observer bias.

Think of it this way, You take a course, It takes up as much time as a full-time job.  On top of that, you have 4 months to complete a game from scratch.  Oh wait, no you don't - you havn't learned enough to make it till half way through the course.  You have 2 months to make a full game from scratch in your spare time.  You are a logical thinker who can't write well.  You stick to your strengths - mechanics, not storyline.  This is the sad situation for these game creation classes.

4 months is a pretty short course I think, seeing as the biggest name DigiPen is 4 years. I wonder what both of those are like.

I'm sure something short that conveyed a powerful story efficiently could work though, it's been done before. Regardless, you do have a point, mechanics are a safer bet.