Designing with Player Paths: Presenting a Game Design Framework

Paper: Schacherbauer, M., and Dyrda, D. (2025). Designing with Player Paths: Presenting a Game Design Framework. IEEE Conference on Games 2025.

DOI: 10.1109/CoG64752.2025.11114252.

Abstract: Player paths are a central design paradigm game designers use for video games. However, keeping track of all designed player paths during development is difficult. This paper proposes a framework that supports developers who use player paths as a central design paradigm. To do so, we look at the definitions of common terms regarding player paths and analyze current workflows used in the video game industry by analyzing presentations at game development conferences. By doing so, we can ensure that our proposed framework uses knowledge from both practitioners and scholars to bridge the gap between them. The framework is based on the usage of graphs and is entirely independent of the functionality of the graph in the video game, ensuring maximal flexibility for the developers. The framework uses features available in game engines, making it possible to use in any development environment. Last, we also demonstrate the tool's functionality via a prototype of the framework in Unity.

➜Published Paper: IEEE Xplore

➜Accepted Author Manuscript: Document