Lenses

Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“I’m currently reading a beautiful book about game design called The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses [<link] by Jesse Schell.”

“How come you’re reading about game design?”

“I think of my life as a Game [<link; medium length]. I approach it from the perspective of both a Player and a Designer. I want to get better at both.

I love Jesse’s approach to game design. He has distilled the essence of the art to a number of principles (100+). He introduces them one by one, gradually painting a map that ties them all together by the end of the book.

He calls the principles lenses (which are essentially models). 
The lenses are tools. Once activated (which is essentially priming), they allow the designer to see the game with different eyes.

The lenses have a certain structure: the lens’s title, followed by a short description, followed by a number of questions. He has even created physical cards for each. They look like this:

I think this is brilliant. It inspired me to create something similar for my Beautiful Game.

I’ve also included lenses in the classification of models that I’m working on. Lenses are perceptual models, models that influence one’s perception of reality. I also like to call them reality filters.”

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