Musings

In my experience, problem solving in game design has tend to be building/creating an experiences for someone else, whether it’s for kids, adults, or in between. You generally try to gauge their perception of the experience you’re going to give them. Designing games in essence are problems you’re pushing on people to solve in some capacity.

The reason I want to emphasize this is that game design and designing for product tend to run parallel. When you’re looking to create a site or application you’re working on the assumptions of the people you expect to use it. Which means you’re looking to anticipate people’s problems ,ideally, before they even encounter them.

So on one end, game design, you have the idea that you’re creating problems for people and the other, product, has you solving problems before they’re seen.

While we generally try to design for the users we feel are going to use our product or play our game, the want for this product/game (in my experience) comes from a boss, client, etc.

Finding the balance between internal and external stakeholders is important. That initial outline is the roadmap that we use as we flesh out the game/product/application, but our understanding of our users ultimately shapes the final product.