On Game Pillars

Game design pillars! While not needed for every project, I'm a big believer in them as a tool for guiding development, especially for larger projects.

Articulating pillars for a game is a gift to the team from the creative leadership--and I don't mean a divine gift of brilliance bestowed from on high. Rather, they provide a defense for the team against the arbitrariness and indecisiveness of directors, as well as empowering the team with more consistency, communication, and understanding.

But it's not enough to just have pillars, you need good ones. Good pillars have a few critical qualities. Below are the ones I've discovered in my career--please comment if you know of others!

Good game design pillars are:

1. Specific

   It doesn't help anyone to say you'll have "Exciting combat" or a "Beautiful world." A pillar needs to exclude more than it includes or it has no value as a guide. Instead of a "Beautiful world," how about one that is Sublimely Alien? Or combat that is Precise & Punishing? Don't tell your team the game is "About friendship." Explain to them that Friendship is Worth Dying For. When you're two years into development and there's a disagreement about a character's fate or the style of an animation or the tone of the music, the specificity of a pillar provides the shared criterion that can actually bring consensus. Yes, combat is punishing, so a relatively long hit react for the player may feel and play just right.
   

2. Multidisciplinary

   Don't get too specific! In particular, don't narrow a pillar's purview down to only one aspect of the game. "Recombinant loot" is a great feature, but it's not a pillar. Your pillar should have implications for several disciplines' work--ideally all of them. Experimentation is Rewarded would encompass recombinant loot and also environments with secret spaces that only resourceful players will find. Pillars of multidisciplinary scope empower every team member to contribute to every aspect of the game, because everyone has a shared vocabulary for how the game should feel or what it should evoke.
   

3. Memorable

   Good game pillars will be continually referenced by every team member, whether working on their own or collaborating. Therefore, they must be easy for team members to recall and deploy. Keep them pithy. They don't need to be as terse as my examples in this essay--sometimes you need a whole sentence!--but express them directly and succinctly. Flavorful and evocative words inspire the team more than purely descriptive ones. Saying a game has "difficult choices" is less helpful than Thorny Choices. Finally, foisting too many pillars on your team also harms memorability--stick with two to four (...maaaybe five).
   

4. Flexible (when they have to be)

   As the name implies, pillars are best when strong and stable. Nevertheless, you can't be afraid to change your pillars. Or more accurately: to discover better ones. Let the team's work inspire you. Did a character artist just create the most incredible creature, one that embodies what the game's whole world ought to be? Put it in a pillar: Maximum Huggability! Even halfway through development, you don't benefit from leaving a pillar half-baked or unexpressed. Just be sure to communicate the change to the entire team, and explain where it came from.

Effective game pillars are carefully targeted, clearly articulated, and thoughtfully maintained. If they are, they will also be constantly useful--as signposts, as rallying cries, as inspirations, and as arbiters.

What do you find makes a good game design pillar?

(N.B., Every word (and em-dash!) in this essay was written by me, a real human being!)