Languages of games and play : automating game design and enabling live programming

In game development, the maximum number of game design iterations determines the achievable quality. This thesis explores what informs the design and construction of good games in order to help speed-up game development processes, and create better games more quickly. On the one hand, we study how Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) can help automate game design by offering developers and designers abstractions and notations that raise their productivity, reduce iteration times, and improve the quality of player experiences and a game’s source code. On the other hand, we explore how generic language technology can be leveraged and developed, in particular for constructing DSLs for live programming and automating game design. The thesis begins with an extensive literature review. We study to what extent languages, structured notations, patterns and tools, can offer designers and developers theoretical foundations, systematic techniques and practical solutions they need to raise their productivity and improve the quality of games and play. We propose the term ‘languages of games and play’ for language-centric approaches for tackling challenges and solving problems related to game design and development. Despite the growing number of publications on this topic there is currently no overview describing the state-of-the-art that relates research areas, goals and applications. As a result, efforts and successes are often one-off, lessons learned go overlooked, language reuse remains minimal, and opportunities for collaboration and synergy are lost.