The Design Lens

Practice - what you do

What a Lens Does

A lens focuses attention. It brings some things into clarity while letting others blur into background.

Every framework is a lens. MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) is a lens. Formal analysis is a lens. Player experience models are lenses. The 4 A's and Gesture are a lens.

No lens shows everything. The question is what a particular lens helps you see.

What This Lens Helps You See

The VG101 lens focuses on:

Experience over abstraction. We start with what the player feels, not with systems diagrams.
Heritage over invention. We trace where choices come from, not pretend they emerged from nothing.
Craft over theory. We develop practical vocabulary for making and analyzing, not just categorizing.
Wholeness over dissection. We study the Gesture as a whole before pulling it apart into components.

Using Multiple Lenses

You don't have to pick one lens and ignore all others. Different lenses serve different purposes.

If you're balancing an economy, MDA might help. If you're studying player behavior, psychology frameworks might help. If you're analyzing narrative, literary theory might help.

The VG101 lens is particularly useful for:

Analyzing why a moment feels the way it does
Understanding where a design choice comes from
Developing vocabulary to talk about videogame craft
Creating intentional experiences rather than accidental ones

The Goal

The goal is not to become a theorist. The goal is to become someone who can play a videogame and understand why it feels the way it does. And then make something that feels intentional.

Theory serves practice. Analysis serves creation. The lens is a tool, not an end.

Exercise: Lens Comparison

Take a single videogame moment (e.g., landing a jump in Celeste). Analyze it through:

MDA: What mechanics create this dynamic? What aesthetic results?
VG101: What is the Gesture? What are the 4 A's? What heritage is present?

What does each lens reveal? What does each miss?

Craft - for educators

Respecting What Came Before

This framework is not about erasing the work of other videogame designers, theorists, or scholars. All of that knowledge is respected and in play.

Academic perspectives matter. Social perspectives matter. Entertainment perspectives matter. Product perspectives matter. We are not here to dismiss any of these.

We are here to see videogames as they are unto themselves. To analyze them without cherry-picking which framing serves our argument. To take them seriously as a medium with its own properties, its own traditions, its own craft.

Why Another Framework

Students may ask: "Why not just use MDA?" or "Why do we need new vocabulary?"

The answer: existing frameworks are valuable but often privilege certain perspectives. MDA privileges system thinking. Formal analysis privileges structure. Player experience models privilege psychology.

The VG101 framework privileges the felt experience and its heritage. This is a different entry point, not a replacement.

Teaching Lens-Switching

Students should learn to switch between lenses fluently. An exercise: analyze the same videogame moment three ways (MDA, player psychology, VG101). What does each reveal?

The goal is flexibility, not orthodoxy. No single lens is "correct."

Common Challenges

"This is too abstract":

Ground everything in specific videogame moments. Never discuss Gesture without pointing to a concrete Gesture. Theory without examples is empty.

"I just want to make, not analyze":

Analysis serves making. You can't intentionally create a feeling you can't name. The vocabulary is a tool for creation, not a replacement for it.

Theory - deeper grounding

Why "Lens"

The lens metaphor comes from Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design, which presents 100+ lenses for examining videogames. Each lens asks different questions.

We use "lens" to emphasize that frameworks are tools, not truths. You look through them; you don't worship them.

Phenomenology and Experience

The emphasis on felt experience connects to phenomenological traditions in philosophy - starting from how things appear to consciousness rather than from abstract structures.

Brendan Keogh's work applies this to videogames explicitly. We start with the body playing the videogame, not with the system that the body interacts with.

What We're Taking

The insight that frameworks are lenses, not truths. The permission to develop vocabulary suited to what we're studying. The commitment to experience as the starting point.

What We're Resisting

Framework wars: "MDA is wrong, VG101 is right." No. Different lenses for different purposes.

Theory for theory's sake: The vocabulary serves making. If it doesn't help you create, it's not doing its job.

Unresolved Questions

Can we ever see a videogame "as it is" or only through lenses? Is there a lens-free view?
How do we know when a framework is useful vs. when it's imposing structure that isn't there?
What's the relationship between analyzing videogames and making them? Do they require the same skills?

References

Schell, Jesse. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (2008)
Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek. "MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design" (2004)
Keogh, Brendan. A Play of Bodies (2018)