Hi, this is Sabrina. I’m a designer here at Schell Games and I’ve been with the studio for a while – long enough to be part of our transition from a purely entertainment studio to one that is doing about two-thirds what we call transformational games, or games that are designed to change the player in some way.

Having been a design lead or project director on several of these projects, I’ve seen that they have some production and design needs that differ from traditional pure entertainment games. So, one of the projects I’m working on here at Schell Games is the creation of a “field guide” for design leaders on transformational game projects – a resource that is useful both as a guide for those new to the process, and as a reference for those that are more experienced. One big piece of this guide is an overview of the “Transformation Framework,” a process and documentation tool for transformational games that I’ve been helping to develop here at the studio.

It started out as an internal project, but now there is a tentative thought that this guide could be useful to other developers outside Schell Games, so I’m planning on sharing some pages in progress on the SG Labs blog over the next few months. Keep in mind that everything here is essentially in early draft format!

If what you see piques your interest, leave a comment or get in touch: sabrina@schellgames.com.

To kick things off, here are a few pages from the early sections of the book:

What defines “transformational games” for the purposes of this field guide

Some of the reasons that we believe establishing a better process for transformational games is so important.