ABSTRACT
Pattern exercises consist of five to ten steps that guide the developer through the process of creating the pattern. These steps break down into four sections: framing the intent of the exercise; listing and describing examples; analyzing the examples; and articulating the pattern. Often there are multiple steps within each of these areas. High-Order Patterns asks the designer to pick a design element, then describe the problems it solves, and then pick one of those problems as the starting point for the pattern. Embedded and Environmental Narrative Patterns starts with picking a single game, but the user is asked to describe ten techniques used to incorporate narrative into the game. Then the designer is asked to repeat that process multiple times for other games with a similar narrative. The purpose of the pattern exercise is to generate a reasonably large set of data points and elicit enough detail about them that the designer has the material to conduct their analysis.
