<aside> ℹ️ Inspiration, reflection, brainstorming, analysis
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A Lens proposes a set of questions that are used to view and reflect upon a game's design.
Originating from Jesse Schell's game design textbook The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses (2008), the Deck of Lenses is a useful tool for inspiration, brainstorming and analysis. Originally contained in a physical deck of cards, it has since been made available in a Web, Android, and iOS application and currently accounts for 113 individual lenses.
Having weird things in your story can help give meaning to unusual game mechanics, capture the interest of the player, and make your world seem special. Too much weirdness, though, will render your story puzzling and inaccessible. To make sure your story is the good kind of weird, ask yourself these questions:
(http://deck.artofgamedesign.com/#/menu/77/)
The questions posed by the various lenses provide new perspectives towards a game's design. This can be used for both analysing existing games, as well as to reflect and brainstorm upon one's own designs.
Designer Daniel Cook recommends to regularly sort out irrelevant lenses for a given situation before shuffling the deck and attempting to answer whichever question pops up. If many questions can be answered, he takes it as a design being on track, while ambiguity would prompt him to search for its potential causes in an effort to resolve them. The physical deck can also be mixed with custom, project related notes to be integrated in this practice, and shared with team members as a communally used tool. (Cook, 2009, p. 2)
As the lenses originated from Schell's book, some of them refer to concepts and/or lists that are exclusive to this book, thus limiting the usefulness of some of the cards for those who do not own the book itself. The deck has slight a tendency towards more theoretical and philosophical questions, which are likely to be less applicable towards the end of the game production process.