Games Design Frameworks: A Novel Approach for Games Design Pedagogy

The discipline of Games Design has surged in popularity in higher education as a route to industry for aspiring game developers. Notably, at the time of writing 138 UK Universities are now offering game design degrees, and many further education institutions. This growth is not only in volume but also in the diversity of students who enrol in these courses. Young learners, coming from various backgrounds and with differing levels of professional and academic experience, are drawn to games as a field of study. Games disciplines (such as Games Art, Design, and Programming) are often seen as more accessible than their comparative parent disciplines (such as Computer Science). This diversity presents both an opportunity and a challenge for educators: to develop teaching methodologies that not only cater to a wide range of experiences but also effectively prepare students for the creative and technical demands of the games industry. This paper introduces a pioneering design concept utilized in the pedagogy of game design, namely the use of game frameworks. A framework is a structure built in a video games engine, containing a pre-made, playable game experience, which students are taught to build upon and modify. Frameworks abstract and modularise fundamental, complex elements of the game creation process, allowing new learners to quickly become engaged with the iterative process of designing gameplay. It also allows educators to focus on a specific area of interest. For example, a student can focus just on the UI elements of the game for a whole module of study, without needing to have built the entire game first. This allows students to focus on the elements being taught, without introducing a significant amount of non-assessed content just to enable to learning. This position paper discusses our application of this approach, including the process of framework design, supportive assessment, successes and challenges.