When designing a game, it is tempting to begin with the mechanics.
- Should players collect cards?
- Race against a timer?
- Move around a board?
- Make choices?
- Solve a puzzle?
Those questions matter. Mechanics create the structure of play.
But there is another question that can be more useful at the beginning:
What do we want people to notice?
It sounds simple, but it changes the design conversation.
Instead of beginning with what players will do, we begin with what the experience might help them see.
Games direct attention
Every game quietly tells us what deserves our attention.
In chess, we notice position, threat and possibility. In a:
- hidden-object game, we scrutinise details that we might otherwise overlook.
- resource-management game, scarcity suddenly matters.
- conversation game, we may start noticing perspectives, experiences or assumptions that rarely surface in everyday discussion.
The rules create a kind of temporary lens.
For a few minutes, certain things become unusually important.
That makes attention an interesting design material.
A designer is not only creating actions. They are deciding what the game repeatedly brings into view.
Start with noticing, then choose the mechanic
Imagine we want people to recognise the strengths that already exist within a community.
We could begin by saying:
Let’s make a matching game.
Immediately, we are designing around a mechanic.
But suppose we begin somewhere else:
What might people overlook in a community that we would like them to notice?
Perhaps:
- knowledge people carry
- practical skills
- relationships
- passions and interests
- informal leadership
- places people value
- resources already available
Now the mechanic has a job.
Perhaps players explore an illustrated neighbourhood looking for assets.
Perhaps they interview fictional residents.
Perhaps they connect people who could help one another.
Perhaps they receive a community challenge and can only solve it by discovering resources already present.
There are many possible games because we haven’t prematurely committed ourselves to one mechanic.
The learning intention begins shaping the play.
What should become visible?
This question is particularly useful when working with subjects that involve perspectives, relationships or systems.
Consider a workshop about teamwork.
What should participants notice?
Maybe it is:
- who speaks most.
- whose ideas are overlooked.
- how quickly groups make assumptions.
- the different resources people bring to a problem.
Each answer could produce a completely different activity.
Or consider creativity.
If we want people to notice that the first idea is rarely the only possibility, we might design a game that rewards generating alternatives.
If we want people to notice unexpected connections, we might give them apparently unrelated objects or concepts and ask them to combine them.
The mechanic becomes meaningful because it makes something visible.
Noticing is not the same as telling
Of course, we could simply tell people what we want them to notice.
A slide might say:
Communities contain valuable skills and knowledge.
Clear. Efficient. True.
But compare that with an experience in which players explore a community and gradually discover those skills themselves.
The conclusion may be similar.
The route to it is different.
In one case, the idea arrives as information.
In the other, the player encounters evidence and reaches the idea through experience.
That distinction matters.
Discovery creates room for curiosity:
What else haven’t I noticed?
And sometimes that question is more valuable than the statement we could have put on the slide.
Be careful what the game rewards
There is another side to this.
Games don’t only direct attention through their subject matter. They also direct attention through their reward systems. Add:
- points and players notice points.
- a timer and they notice speed.
- competition and they notice other players’ performance.
- scarce resources and they notice what they might lose.
None of those mechanics is inherently good or bad.
But they influence the experience.
Imagine a game intended to encourage thoughtful conversation.
If players receive points for answering as quickly as possible, the mechanics may quietly undermine the intention.
Or imagine an activity about collaboration where only one person can win.
That contradiction might be deliberate and interesting.
Or it might simply be an accident of design.
This is why the question isn’t only:
Is this mechanic fun?
It is also:
What will this mechanic make people pay attention to?
Design the conversation after the game too
Not everything needs to happen during play.
Sometimes a game creates an experience first and understanding emerges afterwards.
Players might notice that they consistently chose the safest option.
Or that one resource became unexpectedly valuable.
Or that the group solved something only when different perspectives were combined.
A short reflection can then bring those observations into focus:
What did you notice?
What surprised you?
What changed once other people became involved?
Where might this show up outside the game?
These questions don’t need to explain the experience for players.
They can simply help players examine what happened.
A useful starting point
The next time you are designing a game, activity or workshop, try postponing the mechanics for a moment.
Before deciding on cards, points, timers or boards, write this sentence:
By the end of this experience, I hope people notice…
Complete it several different ways.
Then ask:
What could happen during play that would allow them to discover that for themselves?
Only then start choosing mechanics.
You may end up with:
- cards.
- a board.
- something that doesn’t look much like a traditional game at all.
That’s fine.
The mechanic is a tool.
The experience is the design.
A question to play with
Think about something you are currently trying to teach, facilitate or communicate.
What do you want people to notice that they might otherwise walk straight past?
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