Juicing the game design process: towards a content centric framework for understanding and teaching game design in higher education

The aim of this article is to advance a framework for understanding and teaching game design in higher education, in order to address complexities inherent in teaching game design courses. Everyday teaching and learning game design often deviate from the standard textbook model of game design. In reality everyday teaching and learning operate with handling game design curriculum, how to think games, and how to organise the development process. The presented framework merge curriculum, thinking, and process guided by the game design concept of juiciness. The framework will be presented by dismantling the standard textbook model of game design into three; game design (curriculum), game design thinking (thinking), and game development (organisation). In this perspective game design is concerned with game mechanics, game design thinking preoccupied with paper prototyping, metaphor, and framing, while game developments addresses player experience including play and game testing. This article will coin vertical design as juiciness as opposed to horizontal design understood as expanding system layout. Juiciness will be placed as a guiding principle in the relationship between designers and designed content as an aspect of designer intentions and motivations. Lastly, the content centric framework will be presented by merging game design, game design thinking, game development, vertical design with selected aspects of accepted software development strategies as an approach to teaching and learning game design in higher education.