White Paper: Design Pattern Research and its Applicability to Ecogame Design
Published: May 6th, 2026
Author: Dr Stefan Werning, Utrecht University
What is this white paper about?
This report synthesizes existing research on 'design patterns' as applied to games and game design, identifying useful patterns and design principles for use in ecogame design, i.e. in creating games and in-game 'activations' that foster climate communication and environmental literacy. It constitutes the theoretical framework for the Ecogame Design Pattern library currently (as of June 2026) in development within the Horizon Europe project STRATEGIES.
The ‘design pattern’ concept, often attributed to Christopher Alexander’s work on landscape design from the late 1970s (Hansen 2024), has been used in a variety of academic and design contexts to introduce shared vocabulary and to acknowledge how recurring patterns, archetypes and solutions to common problems/challenges shape the designer’s imagination. It has been adapted to games by Bjork, Holopainen and Lundgren (2003) in the early consolidation period of game studies as a discipline to inform contemporary game analysis methodologies and has subsequently been used to tentatively formalize specific types or applications of games, from cooperative games to specific genres like Farmville-type games.
Apart from a title and a short description, design patterns include examples from existing games for illustration purposes and details regarding the ‘implementation’ (e.g. how a pattern relies on or clashes with specific mechanics or patterns). The patterns themselves will be derived from analyses of ecogames shared and discussed via the Green Mediography (https://greenmediography.nl/).
Bjork, Staffan, Jussi Holopainen, and Sus Lundgren. 2003. “Game Design Patterns.” In Level Up: Digital Games Research, edited by Joost Raessens and Marinka Copier. Utrecht University.
Hansen, Stig Børsen. 2024. “Christopher Alexander on Design Patterns and Principles.” In Creating Design Knowledge in Educational Innovation: Theory, Methods, and Practice, edited by Inger-Marie F. Christensen, Lina Markauskaite, Nina Bonderup Dohn, Dwayne Ripley, and Roland Hachmann. Routledge.
