Introduction to Game Design: Game Systems and Balance

This course will be retired on September 30, 2023.

Game designers create the ideas and worlds of games—they design the environment, characters, game mechanics, goals and user experience. Successful game designers do this by applying the fundamentals of game system design and logic.

This course explains what game system design is, how it works, and how it relates to game mechanics, designing rules, and logical thinking and reasoning. Game balance is a crucial component of game design and development, so in this course we will focus on what game balance is and why it is important in terms of its relation to simplicity and complexity, dominant strategies, and skill and chance.

This course also dives into game balancing tools you can use to make your game a success, including risk and reward, physical and mental challenges, gameplay duration, and freedom versus control.

Topics covered include:

• Game system design and logic
• Game balance
• Game environments
• Game balancing tools

Module 1: Game system design and logic

• Game system design and game mechanics

• Rules and logic

• Logical thinking and reasoning

Module 2: Game balance

• The importance of game balance

• Fairness

• Challenge versus success

Module 3: Game environments

• Simple versus complex

• Dominant strategies

• Skill versus chance

Module 4: Game balancing tools

• Skills versus chance

• Risk versus reward

• Head versus hands

• Too short versus too long