Following my presentation that introduced my research subject to the class and my tutors, it seemed that my tutor wasn't entirely clear on what I intend to research. This may be because game design is often overlooked, and little-known to most people outside of the field. It's clear that my following presentations will have to introduce the subject more carefully.
To clarify; game design is the practice of handling a game's behavior, rules, composition, and experiential quality. As a discipline, it has fuzzy boundaries and widely varying roles throughout different game studios, but game design is very necessary for the creation of a good game. I normally like to explain the role of the game designer using Chess as an example.
Chess is a folk game; it's been "designed" by thousands-millions of people throughout the ages. But let's imagine for a second that it was created in a modern board-game studio, from scratch. A lot of people assume that just making the game makes you its designer. Carving the pieces, painting the board, designing the box art, they're often confused with the role of the game designer (given that "game designer" is often shortened to "designer" which, in almost all other fields, is an artistic role, this isn't surprising). These tasks would not, however, be the work of the game designer. Especially in the context of a video game, this kind of thing is handled by the game artist. In the case of Chess, the designer decides how many pieces there are, what they all do, how many squares are on the board (and even if they're going to use a square grid at all). These decisions may seem mundane, but they're often extremely weighted responsibilities that shape the game's quality.
In my case, I'm looking closely at the design of progression, and tutorials. Many video games are so complicated that they need to convey lots of instructions to the player, without boring them. Lots of games still aren't doing a very good job, and I'd like to investigate why this is the case, and how you can do a good job.
When I talk about tutorship, I don't necessarily mean solidly tutorial levels. This method of tutorship is arguably inferior to more integrated, seamless tutorials. Furthermore, even after your player has been taught basic controls and objectives, many games require continuous mastery of new situations and mechanics, so teaching the player should rarely stop at an early point of the game.
My research could focus on several individual topics. Designing overt tutorials and effectively conveying information, experience/difficulty curves, and 'flow'.
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