Theory as Game: Designing the Gamegame

Aki Järvinen's "Theory as Game: Designing the Gamegame" presents a card game that serves as both a tool for analyzing games and a method for generating design ideas. The work is grounded in Järvinen's doctoral theory of game elements, which breaks games into nine types grouped into systemic, behavioural, and compound classes, including goals, components, procedures, environments, players, contexts, rules, game mechanics, theme, and interface. The paper argues that distinct genres arise from particular configurations of these elements, and it frames the Gamegame as a way of turning that combinatorial design task into play, in the spirit of comics theory presented in comic form.

The paper situates its case study within design research, specifically Frayling's distinction between research into, through, and for design, and positions the Gamegame as research through design that produces a tangible artifact embodying the thesis theory. In gameplay, players collect element cards across three milestone rounds, verbalize their design concepts through "pitching," manage scarce budget and asset cards, and accumulate points, with the game ending when the final deck is depleted. Emotion cards draw on a mood typology, and the pitching mechanic is intended to teach players general principles of game structure.

Methodologically, the work documents an iterative design process informed by game design theorists. Early simulations led to a simplified "basic edition," and the first playtest with four participants prompted a shift from complex point calculations to a voting-based end condition. The author reports that the game was generally well received and generated unusual concepts, though trading mechanics were underused and summary cards were added to address player confusion. Subsequent sessions, including tests at Finnish mobile developers, Nokia Research Center, and Sulake Corporation, led to a solitaire variant. The author concludes that the Gamegame supports both detailed game analysis and early-stage ideation, bridging academic and industry needs, with six playtest iterations completed at the time of writing.