Are you a Painter, a Sculptor, or a Potter?

No, this isn’t one of those Buzzfeed quizzes (not sure I know how to make those in Substack anyway)… but it’s definitely a good question to ask yourself.

I think so, yes – they all have to do with how designers put their games together and how they iterate. There may be more than three, but these three correspond pretty nicely to three other ways of creating.

Picture a painter staring at a blank canvas. They squirt some paint onto their palette, select a brush, and imagine the different elements in their head. Maybe they’ve already sketched out the full piece, or maybe they’ll make it up as they go along.

Watch any Bob Ross video on Youtube and you’ll get what I’m talking about:

A painting comes together one element at a time, one brushstroke at a time, one layer at a time. I’ve talked about the Minimum Viable Game (MVG) in my post about self-playtesting, and this is basically where the painter starts from.

The ‘Painter’ designing style tends to be careful and conscientious. Whether this is a habit they’ve picked up or a way of thinking that works for them, they probably already have a pretty good idea of what they want to make.

They can sometimes be too cautious when adding new layers to their game.

Remember that added layers aren’t permanent. If they’re getting in the way of what you want the game to be, remove them and see what happens.

Keep it simple. Yes, I know, this is an easier said than done sort of thing. Games really don’t need All The Moving Parts to be worthwhile.

Remember game design is an iterative process, not one-and-done. Start simple. Recognize when you’re adding layers (and there are more of these than you think – a new type of card, a way of scoring points, a way of interacting with the components or other players, etc.) and make the choice to add it.

Sculptors start with a large block of something (like stone clay, etc.) and carefully sculpt out everything that isn’t part of the statue.

Sculptors also have a vision of what they’re making, but they’ll have to get through the rest of the ‘material’ in the way.

The ‘Sculptor’ design style tends to throw a bunch of mechanics into one game, which means your game might feel like a ‘kitchen sink’.

You’re going to spend more of your iterative time cutting rather than adding, and each cut is going to have a ripple effect since you’ll be linking mechanics together. This means every cut needs to consider the rest of the game to see what will change… and this is actually a strength of the Sculptor design style… if you actually do this.

As you cut things, remember that all those little pieces and layers are never gone, just removed from this game for now. The more organized your notes are about what you cut and why, the easier it will be to incorporate those pieces and layers back into this game or other ones in the future.

Allow yourself to throw everything in the pot (or throw all the spaghetti at the wall, or pick another metaphor here). It will feel like a jumble of elements, and that’s OK.

Be aggressive when cutting. If you find you miss something, you can always bring it back. Not doing this (or cutting things too slowly) means it’ll take a lot longer to work through what should be cut.

These were the two design styles I had pictured for years. It’s a spectrum, to be sure, but designers were typically on one side or the other.

In recent months, I’ve found myself inventing, reinventing, and then reinventing the same concept into completely different things. Either the theme was the same or the mechanic was the same, but something carried through such that I didn’t consider it a new project or a new game.

It led me to realize there was a third design style waiting in the wings.

For a potter, their ball of clay on a spinning wheel can be anything they can dream. The clay is very malleable, and it can become very tall in one second or splat the next.

Some game designers aren’t sure what their vision is for their game, so they try out lots of suggestions for changing it. Add this mechanic, try this theme out, make it for a larger player count. The clay isn’t fixed until it’s thrown into the kiln, after all, and you can keep shaping the same ball of clay indefinitely.

The ‘Potter’ design style has you trying a bunch of stuff, sometimes multiple versions or variants of the same game in rapid-fire succession. You might be adding or removing a number of things, like a DJ trying to find the right mix.

The biggest issue is going to feel like you found the right version or variant. There are so many more things to try, you might think. It’s easy to keep making big dramatic changes and never lock in on one version.

I think the solution here is to acknowledge those other what‑if ideas and allow them to take on a life of their own. Don’t make them compete for the next iteration of this game. Allow them to spin off into their own games.

Allow playtesters to experiment with your game. Let other designers reimagine it with different components, play styles, etc. Be willing to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

The Potter style merits a word of caution, however. The art of creating and re-creating and endless iterating is a lot of fun… but it can mean your game never makes it to the proverbial kiln. At some point, you need to find a direction or you’ll never finish tweaking it. Finishing the game takes more work, but lets you feel a sense of accomplishment, whether ‘finishing’ a game means putting it on the Game Crafter, crowdfunding it, or getting it ready to pitch.