MDA Framework

The MDA framework, short for Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics, is one of the classic tools for analyzing games. Though generally used to study completed games, it is very useful during game design to make sure that the game holistically supports the intended design. In essence, it divides games into three aspects:

• Mechanics — The rules of the game, the base actions players do. In video games, these are enforced by the computer code. Some examples include: shooting, jumping, not being able to hit the ball with your hands (as in football).
• Dynamics — These are the systems that come out from the interplay of the mechanics and the player input. For game designers this is how we’d like the mechanics to encourage players to behave.
• Aesthetics — How players experience the game. These include the visuals, sound FX, narrative, but more abstractly the emotional reaction you want players to have.

In essence the Mechanics create the Dynamics which shape the Aesthetics. As designers, this is generally the order we create the experience. Players on the other hand always experience a game in that reversed direction (Aesthetics > Dynamics > Mechanics) with more casual players staying in the outer layer, while hardcore players will dig deep into the inner one.

One important note is that, despite games being built mechanics up, this is not necessarily how games are conceived. The seed and mandate for the game can come from any of the three aspects: it might be you’re trying to make a game to create a specific emotion, that your client wants to support a specific dynamic, that your engineers want to build a game around a new mechanic they made possible, etc… Game ideas can come from anywhere.

In the paper that proposed it (see below), the authors divided the aesthetic into 8 main types; however, given that DGD is not used solely for “games as entertainment”, I find it reductive. That being said, if you’d like to learn more I encourage you to check out the original document.

The original paper is called MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research and was written by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, Robert Zubek. You can find it online here.

When proposing ideas for the GD-1, it’s good to take a moment and think of how it fits within the MDA approach. As usual I like to use whiteboards and stickies.

1. Draw the MDA circles on a whiteboard
2. Write a single word/phrase on a sticky and paste it in the right spot
3. Continue until you have a good sense of each aspect. I like to group them if they are somehow connected; that lets you see which aspects your head is leaning towards.
4. Make sure that your concept’s mechanics create the expected dynamics and are supported by your proposed aesthetics.

Later on, during playtesting, make sure that the aesthetics (in terms of player emotions) match the ones you had originally intended. You can always refer back to this tool to analyze your game’s current state and guide playtesting.

Let’s imagine we’re working on a rougelike, deckbuilder where you play against Death to escape purgatory. We can think of it as a more horror version of Slay the Spire:

From that logline above, we know a few things:

• The game needs to feature cards and deckbuilding mechanics.
• Generally, these genres are mechanically complex with deep synergies.
• There is a horror vibe to it.

With that in mind, a non-exhaustive MDA could look like this:

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