The Systems and Methods of Game Design.

There have been multiple pattern languages for game design, and the pattern format held promise in overcoming the longstanding methodological gaps in game design. The paper examines related work in games research that places game design at the center of understanding games and in a design-led breakthrough in games research. Barney's approach is a back-to-basics approach in that it reasserts certain principles found in the original design pattern language (in the field of architecture) which had been more or less eschewed in game design pattern development. [Extracted from the article]