What Is SAGE and Why Does It Exist? SAGE #0000
SAGE: Systems Analysis & Game Exploration An aspiring game designer’s notes on storytelling and systems as he designs.
Every story leaves something behind.
For most readers, it’s a character they can’t forget, or a world that stays with them long after it’s over.
After I started my journey toward becoming a game designer, what stayed with me was different.
It was the system hidden beneath the story.
For years, I’ve immersed myself in stories across almost every medium I could find: novels, web novels, comics, manga, manhwa, anime, films, television, audio dramas and of course, video games. Every medium offered something different, yet all of them shared one thing in common: they were carefully constructed worlds governed by their own rules.
As a reader, I was fascinated by those worlds. As an aspiring game designer, I became fascinated by the rules that made them possible.
That difference changed everything.
I started noticing the progression systems that rewarded growth, the power structures that defined societies, the economies that kept kingdoms functioning, the class systems that shaped identities and the countless invisible design decisions that made fictional worlds feel real. Without quite realizing it, I’d stopped asking only “What happens next?” and started asking “Why does this work?”
That single question changed the way I experience stories.
1. What Is SAGE?
SAGE is not a place to review stories or rate them. It’s a personal design journal, a place to document what stories teach me as I work toward becoming a game designer.
Every article begins with curiosity. Sometimes that curiosity starts with a novel. Sometimes it begins with an audio drama, an anime, a film, or a game. The medium isn’t what matters, it’s the lesson. I believe every well-crafted story has something worth studying: a progression system, a piece of worldbuilding, a character choice, a pacing decision, or a single mechanic that sparks a new way of thinking. SAGE exists to capture those moments.
These aren’t meant to be definitive answers. They’re observations from someone who is constantly learning, questioning, and refining their understanding of storytelling, systems, and design.
If you’re joining me on that journey: welcome. I hope you’ll find, as I did, that some of the best lessons in game design are hiding in the places we least expect: inside the stories we already love.
2. From Reader to Game Designer
Looking back, my journey toward game design didn’t begin with a game. It began with stories.
For years I was simply a reader who loved getting lost in fictional worlds, the kind who tells themselves “just one more chapter” and somehow ends up reading ten. Over time, reading became more than a hobby; it became one of the ways I explored ideas and experienced the creativity of other storytellers.
I found myself drawn to fantasy, progression fantasy, reincarnation, transmigration, action, adventure, thriller and stories built around game-like systems, not because of the magic or the monsters, but because those worlds operated by rules. The characters weren’t simply growing stronger; they were progressing through carefully designed systems, earning abilities, unlocking classes, and discovering mechanics in worlds that felt structured rather than random. Those details stayed with me.
Eventually my reading expanded into manga, manhwa, comics, anime, film, television, and audio dramas. It let me experience familiar stories in a different medium, and see how storytelling changes when words on a page become voices, music, pacing, and performance.
Every medium taught me something different. Novels excelled at building worlds through imagination. Manga and manhwa communicated ideas visually, often with remarkable efficiency. Audio dramas showed how dialogue, sound, and pacing alone could create emotional investment.
Games asked for something else entirely, not to observe a world, but to participate in it. That distinction stayed with me for a long time.
Then I decided to pursue game design.
As I began learning about gameplay systems, progression loops, player psychology, level design, balancing, and Game Design Documents, I noticed something unexpected: the stories I’d loved for years hadn’t changed. I had. I was no longer reading only to find out what happened next I was reading to understand why it happened.
I started questioning mechanics I’d once accepted without a second thought. Could this progression system actually work in a real game? Would this class system stay balanced with thousands of players pulling at it? Could this economy survive real player behavior? Would this quest design encourage exploration, or turn repetitive after a few hours?
Some of the answers surprised me. There were fictional games that sounded incredible on the page and would be almost impossible to build or balance in reality. At first that felt disappointing, until I realized I’d been asking the wrong question. Instead of “Could this whole game exist?” I started asking “What can this game teach me?”
That reframe changed everything. A fictional game doesn’t need to be fully realistic to contain a brilliant idea. One story might introduce a progression mechanic worth studying. Another might present a fascinating class system. A third might inspire a fresh approach to worldbuilding, faction design, or player motivation; even if the complete game described could never exist exactly as written.
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That’s when I realized stories are more than entertainment. They’re design laboratories. Every author is experimenting with systems, mechanics, characters, economies and conflicts. Some experiments succeed, others fail but every one of them offers something worth learning.
That realization became the bridge between the reader I’ve always been and the game designer I hope to become.
3. What You’ll Find in SAGE
SAGE isn’t built around one type of story, and it isn’t limited to a single medium. One article might begin with a fantasy web novel. Another might be inspired by an audio drama, an anime, a manga, or a film. The source material will change; the purpose won’t, to understand what stories can teach us about designing better games.
That doesn’t mean every article is about gameplay mechanics. Sometimes the most valuable lesson isn’t a combat system or a progression loop, it’s the way a fictional economy holds up an entire kingdom, how political factions naturally create conflict, or how a character’s decisions shape the world more than any magical ability could. Sometimes it’s just a single question that refuses to leave my mind after I’ve finished the story.
Topics you can expect across the series:
- Gameplay systems and progression mechanics
- Worldbuilding and environmental design
- Character classes, roles, and growth
- Combat systems and power balancing
- Quests, exploration, and player motivation
- Economies, factions, and social structures
- Storytelling techniques and narrative design
- Level design and environmental storytelling
- Fictional game systems, and whether they could work in reality
- Ideas that spark entirely new approaches to design
Most articles will focus on just one of these, a single mechanic from a novel might inspire an entire piece on player progression; a five-minute scene from a film might raise interesting questions about level design; a forgotten side character might become the starting point for a discussion on NPC design. Some stories may return more than once throughout the series, because as my understanding grows, revisiting the same novel years later might surface something completely different. The lesson won’t have changed. I will have.
These articles are snapshots of my thinking at a particular moment, not final analyses. As I keep learning, experimenting, and building, my perspective will evolve and rather than rewriting the earlier entries, I’d rather preserve them, because growth is one of the most valuable things a designer can document.
You may agree with some of my observations and disagree with others in many cases, I hope you do. Game design thrives on discussion. If an article makes you look at a story differently, question one of my conclusions, or spark a design idea of your own, SAGE has already done its job.
Sometimes SAGE won’t just be about what a story teaches me. It’ll be about where that lesson goes next. If a story gives me an idea I genuinely want to build, whether it’s a full mechanic, a rough concept, or just a “what if,” I’ll bring that here too: not as a finished pitch, but as a working idea I’m still figuring out. Documenting the design as it forms, mistakes included, felt more honest than only sharing it once it’s polished.
4. Looking Ahead
When I first imagined SAGE, it was a much smaller idea simply a place to document what I was learning on the way to becoming a game designer and something I could look back on with pride.
As the idea grew, so did its purpose. Writing these notes forces me to slow down, question my assumptions, and think more critically about the stories I experience. Every article becomes another step in my own growth.
Then came a second realization: the stories that inspire me today might inspire someone else tomorrow. A worldbuilding technique from a fantasy novel might spark an idea for another designer. A progression system from an audio drama might get someone rethinking the mechanics of their own game. A discussion of narrative structure might simply help someone appreciate a story differently.
If that happens, SAGE will have grown beyond a personal notebook into something ideas can travel through from one creator to another.
As I keep learning, my perspective will keep changing. Some ideas in these early entries may later feel incomplete. Others may be refined, challenged, or replaced entirely. I won’t hide that evolution, I want SAGE to preserve it, because growth isn’t measured by never changing your mind. It’s measured by staying curious enough to keep learning.
Maybe five years from now I’ll come back to these first entries. I hope I’ll notice flaws I can’t see today. I hope I’ll smile at ideas that eventually became part of my own work. Most of all, I hope I’ll remember why I started, not to prove what I knew, but to document what I was learning.
If you’re at the beginning of your own creative journey, I hope SAGE encourages you to look a little deeper into the stories that inspire you. You never know which idea, mechanic, or world might become the starting point for something entirely your own.
This is where my journey begins. I hope you’ll enjoy walking part of it with me.
