Loop

Designer loop

You might say: playtest, observe, iterate

The designer's loop sets an intended experience, puts a playable version in front of people, observes the gap and iterates.

What it does: Reduces the distance between the designed experience and the one players actually have.
Ask: What did players actually experience, and what one change should we test next?

Parts

Design intent: Design intent states the target player’s experience and the design decisions meant to produce it before implementation details take over.
Playtest: A playtest puts a playable prototype or build in front of target players to see whether the intended experience is actually happening.
Observed experience: Observed experience is what target players actually perceive, do, explain and feel during a test, including surprises and failure modes.
Iterate: Iteration changes a rule, part or value in response to evidence, then retests the revised system against the target experience.

Loop: balancing

Design intent → Playtest → Observed experience → Iterate ↺

Sources

Michael Sellers, Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach, ch. 7, p. 232The designer interacts with this overarching system by watching players experience the game and adjusting the game’s model to provide better engagement for the player.
Tracy Fullerton, Playcentric Design (ACM interactions, 2008), Playcentric Design, pp. 42–47: goals, prototypes, player tests, feedback and iterationCalled ‘playcentric’ design, it involves setting interesting player-experience goals, building a rough paper or digital prototype that attempts to achieve those goals, testing the prototype with players, evaluating the results and integrating feedback, and then doing it again.
Celia Hodent, Developing UX Practices at Epic Games, slides 2–7 and 31–45: UX model, prototyping, playtesting and iterationI needed to first establish a UX model for the studio, and then apply it in different ways (through prototyping and playtesting mainly).
Scott Rogers, IGDA Interview Series: Scott Rogers, interview: brainstorming, paper maps/storyboards, iteration and honing gameplayI always start with brainstorming and brainstorming always works better with others. Then I do a lot of drawing and writing, taking the ideas, fleshing them out and refining them. Finally, there is a lot of back and forth with the artists and programmers and other designers and lots of iterating and honing of ideas and gameplay.
Anders Drachen, Pejman Mirza-Babaei and Lennart E. Nacke, Games User Research, ch. 1 pp. 1–8; ch. 2 pp. 15–29designers often get the spotlight when a game mechanic is experienced as extremely polished, but the refinement can be the result of a long and elaborate iteration process that involves feedback about the quality of experience.
Celia Hodent, How We Introduced UX to Epic Games’ Production Pipeline (GDC16), Definition of UX; Prod31–40 processUX is mainly about making sure the design and the business intents are the ones ultimately experienced by the target audience … It allowed us to go through the design – test – iterate – retest very fast so we could make quick wins.
Steve Swink, Game Feel: The Secret Ingredient, The Garden’s Ecosystem; Context; Rules; Conclusion: prototype, test and tuneGame feel needs prototyping too, a test that approximates the final, polished feel of interacting with the game
Ian Schreiber, Game Design Concepts, Level 5: Mechanics and Dynamics, The Process of Design; Feedback Loops; HomeplayThe game designer only creates the Mechanics directly.
Tynan Sylvester, The Simulation Dream, Eclipse Colony design case study: candidate designs, analysis, playtests and revisioneven this could still change as the game gets tested more.

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