Meaning and design coincide!

"The etymology of design goes back to the Latin de + signare and means making something,
distinguishing it by a sign, giving it significance, designating its relation to other things, "[1]

Zimmermann is talking about how with design must come a meaning because he is saying that design must be distinguished with a meaning as this is what makes the game have feeling.

So if a game has good design with a sign it will make it distinguished and this is an important point when looking at designing a game. This is a point that I have been thinking about with our game as I want our game to have meaning, but the thing that I was having problems with was finding out how to show meaning through a game. So Eric Zimmermann is telling us how through design we can show meaning, by making a game distinguished with an appearance and relation with the design makes meaning.

So with our game I am going to try and make the appearance of it show the meaning as well as working the meaning into the mechanics. The meaning that were have been thinking about for our game is to make sure that you have got time for your family. 

To go into this thought deeper it really means that we are going to put the player into the shoes of a workaholic and show you how work can effect your life but more importantly how work can effect the relationship that you have between your family. This is because with too much work you can loose your family and loose that connection that you have with your family. 

Zimmerman has helped me with the problems that I have been thinking about how to put meaning into a game but with this it has got me thinking that the design has got a big part of how the meaning is worked into a game because before this I didn't think that this was a big part of the game but it is as this how sign and relation are shown through gameplay.


[1]Zimmerman, ES, 2004. Rules of Play. Game Design Fundamentals. 1st ed. Massachusetts: MIT Press .