Towards a Cybernetic Game Design Framework

Abstract

Established game design frameworks, often adapted from linear engineering disciplines, are fundamentally misaligned with the non-linear, unpredictable, and collaborative reality of game development. This paper diagnoses this misalignment by framing game design as a "wicked problem," a class of challenges that resist traditional, top-down planning. It argues that a more robust foundation can be found in the principles of second-order cybernetics. The paper's contribution is not a rigid new framework, but a foundational rubric of five core principles intended to guide the creation of future design tools. These principles: Systemic Legibility, Emergence Cultivation, Conversational Framing, Authorial Intent as a First-Class Constraint, and Designing for the Player-as-System. Aimed at changing the conceptual understanding of a designer's role from a director of experience to a cultivator of a possibility space. By introducing design concepts rooted in cybernetics and systems thinking, this paper lays the theoretical groundwork for tools that can better support the discovery-driven and emergent nature of game design.