Over this past year, my definitions and ideas of what world design, and worldbuilding are have evolved a lot. Going into Pat and Adam’s classes, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what we were going to be covering, but week after week I was surprised by the depth and specificity of the different things covered.
I’ve always loved fantasy, and especially loved the history behind why a place is the way it is and the things that live there. I always loved history in school, and have continued to seek out and absorb as much history as I can. Thinking about worlds as real, tangible places that have always existed, not just appeared as the games starts, has been a really fulfilling experience. Thinking about the people, their religions, their ideologies, the environments they live in, the language they speak, the maps they write has been so much fun, and I feel like I can really create and flesh out new worlds far better than before. There should always be a reason for everything. This is a piece of advice that I learned in my jaunt at a fine arts school, and i think this is really important to bear in mind when designing games. I like the idea that if someone asked me about absolutely any detail about my world, however minute, that I could tell them exactly why that thing is the way it is. Thinking about approaches like the inside out, outside in approach has also helped me scope my projects a lot better, and helped me figure out how to start designing a new world. Thinking about how mechanics and game designs can be interwoven with the world design has been hugely beneficial as well, and I think this is evident in the current project I’m working on with my team Contrary Scholars. I’ve tried to apply everything i’ve learned in world building to this project, and to this end, I’ve tried to make sure that every design decision is justified and explainable. Being able to have a lecture every week, and then try to implement the new things learned into a constantly evolving project has been a really good way to reinforce the things i’ve learned. Games like Dark Souls, The Witness and Braid have been really great examples that I’ve taken a lot away from. Redesigning theme parks and analysing maps has given me a greater appreciation for the design of spaces, and how things relate to each other in space. Things like lighting, composition, the time it takes to traverse different areas and scale are all puzzles that I now feel equipped to deal and experiment with. One of my biggest takeaways from these world building classes has been the emphasis on architecture. Architecture has always been something i’ve been interested in, but that has always seemed so daunting and alien. I’d never quite taken the step to actually learning about it, and when I found out that architecture would have an emphasis in the world building classes, I was really excited. I now feel like I have a really good, stable understanding of the basics of architecture, and a solid launching point for my own investigations. I look at buildings, and cities, and how spaces are designed differently now, and I’m sure this will have a huge impact on my work as I move forward. Always answering the question of ‘why’ has always been important to me, and I now feel like I have the tools I need to build solid, believable and exciting worlds going forward. Huge thanks to Pat Dunal and Adam Thompson, I’ve learned a lot this year, and I only hope you guys keep up the good work, because I know a lot more people would really appreciate the things I’ve learned over the past year. - Conrad |
World design theory (WDT)DevelopersThe goal of this blog is to relate current and past attempts at world design to further improve our understanding. Archives
October 2017
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