A Canvas for Participation-Centered Game Design

The Game Design activity is often conditioned by pre-existing assumptions of what constitutes a game and its constituting elements, which can lead to repetitive designs and all too familiar experiences. In trying to support the education of a new generation of designers so as to leave the comfort zone of familiar objects, we proposed a design canvas with six perspectives for which to conceptualize player participation in the experience. For each perspective, we proposed a set of questions designed to prompt new lines of thought regarding design intent, game object, and player participation. The canvases were tested throughout three research iterations and improved based on qualitative evaluations of their influence in game design learning processes. The canvas was generally found to be effective at quickly pulling inexperienced game design participants to consider a variety of innovative play experiences, beyond what we would expect from derivative design from examples.