Design pattern approaches have long been used in diverse fields such as architecture, software engineering, and interaction design. With the emergence of game scholarship, there has been interest in applying design patterns to aspects of game design. My interest in design patterns has primarily been for level design, but have also done some exploration of gameplay patterns.

There are many potential benefits to design pattern approaches, including exploring new ideas and providing frameworks for teaching and communicating. Furthermore, deeper understanding of the patterns implicit in their games can help designers better understand expectations of player behavior.

For the most current info on level design pattern research, please visit the website.

Designers and researchers interested in design patterns should also visit Staffan Björk's Game Design Patterns 2.0 and Gillian Smith's RPG Design Patterns.

I was co-chair of the first Workshop on Design Patterns in Games, co-located with with FDG 2012 on May 29, 2012.

• Robert Giusti, Kenneth Hullett, and Jim Whitehead. Weapon Design Patterns in Shooter Games. Workshop on Design Patterns in Games (DPG 2012). Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. May 2012.
• Gabriel Rivera, Kenneth Hullett, and Jim Whitehead. Enemy NPC Design Patterns in Shooter Games. Workshop on Design Patterns in Games (DPG 2012). Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. May 2012.
• Kenneth Hullett and Jim Whitehead. Design Patterns and Data Analysis in FPS Levels. Poster at the 3rd Annual Games User Research Summit, San Francisco, California, USA. March 2012.
• Kenneth Hullett and Jim Whitehead. Design Patterns in FPS Levels. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2010). Monterey, California, June 2010.