Making game mechanics

After defining the theme, making winning and losing conditions, and drawing our general flow diagram, now is the time to create the core part of our game design: game mechanics.

Game mechanics define what the players do inside the main gameplay screen, which is shown in the preceding diagram. This is where the players spend most of their time and have fun in your game, and because of this, it is the most important part of game design.

In LeBlanc's MDA design method, mechanics refers to the individual actions the player can take, such as jumping, shooting, dragging puzzle pieces, picking up objects, placing objects, and more (there are hundreds of game mechanics that can be combined in any number of ways to make the next component, dynamics).

Creating game rules

The first step in making game mechanics is to make game rules. Game rules are special rules in your game that might or might not be written in other games. Game rules tell your players what they can or can't do in...