Design games as a tool, a mindset and a structure Kirsikka Vaajakallio

printouts given to the participants guiding the actions in practice. When
printouts are used, they work as a reminder and guideline in facilitating
the progress and in keeping time as well. For the participants, reading the
printed rules in a step-wise manner creates a positive tension when they
gradually reveal the next steps of the design game. The game rules and
predefined structure ensure rather similar starting points and topics for
the group work, within which personal styles are welcome. More importantly,
since rules are easily associated with board- and card-games, they
work as a bridge between ordinary work practises and the special play
sphere – the magic circle.
Finding the balance between the given frames and ambiguousness is a
matter of putting different play-qualities together in a particular way in a
design game that serves specific contextual purposes. This is the competence
of a design researcher and a design game designer. I find this process
equal to any design project with similar questions that starts from
thinking about the objectives and participants by following a more detailed
description of the rules and the setting. Rules are one way of summarizing
the decisions made when designing a particular design game
and ensure that the different elements and play-qualities summarized in
the Play framework have been considered. Design games as a mindset
address the questions of how to support and manifest the magic circle
to reach the play spirit, for example through rules, game materials, roleplaying
and/or narrative structure.
6.1.3
Design
games
as
a
structure
In Chapter 3, I summarized the characteristics of design games both as an
attitude and as a tool. The Extreme Design project, discussed in Chapters
4 and 5, also emphasised design games as a structure for co-design. By
structure, I mean the manipulation of play-qualities such as design game
materials, facilitation and the participants’ roles in design games, which
the design game designer does in a context-specific manner.
Design material is often talked about in relation to stimulating thinking
and discussions and, hence, its positive influence on collaboration.
However, there is more to design material in the way it can influence the
situation that is not all preferable in co-design, mainly in the way that
stimulating material may distract collaboration or steal the attention
away from the task. As I have demonstrated, people may become engaged
with the situation and the people in it or with the materials and thus ignore
others because of it. If it were a question of workshops where people
are expressing their thoughts and dreams through individually building
artefacts, then that would be allowed. In co-design gatherings, however,
people are working in groups and, although there may be individual
phases to the work, the central part involves working in pairs or in teams.
The above-mentioned problems can be avoided by explaining the task
before displaying the material, or the facilitator can use the exact same
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