PreMortem.Games

JANUARY 8, 2024

During the day he works as a Senior Software Engineer at Blizzard Entertainment, creating games like Hearthstone, together with a large group of specialized professionals. This game represents me as a developer”, he says. With the game now announced for a 2024-release, the part time solo dev is motivated to finish the game.

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Dev Playtesting AAA Indy 156

PreMortem.Games

MAY 19, 2023

Wikkl Works , a Netherlands-based game studio, is working hard on the climbing game New Heights. By using photogrammetry the game offers real life locations like famous rock faces or even well known landmarks. Then we got the idea to scan real world cliffs and mountains into the game using photogrammetry.

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Indy Studios Dev Playtesting 104

PreMortem.Games

MAY 24, 2023

White Star Studio, a small and ambitious game development studio based in Shenzen, China, has captured the essence of ancient China in their game Thriving City. This city-building sim takes players back to the Song Dynasty, where they must navigate the challenges of settling a town, cultivating the land and expanding the city.

Studios 104

Studios Balance Content Playtesting 104

iXie gaming

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Getting started with your first NFT game development venture can be interesting. But is the NFT game development market worth entering? The global play-to-earn (P2E) NFT games market is predicted to reach $3.6 So, yes – NFT game development is worth it. But what are NFT games? But what are NFT games?

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Game Developer Game Development Development Asset 52

iXie gaming

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

The gaming world has evolved significantly in recent times. Multiplayer games have taken center stage by allowing players to play with or against other gamers and friends across the globe. As a result, multiplayer games have revolutionized modern gaming, from human vs. computer to human vs. human interaction.

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Game Developer Game Development Development Quality Assurance 52

Brand Game Development

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

When I was a neophyte game developer, I found an excellent article by Wizards of the Coast, creators of Magic: the Gathering , called Ten Things Every Game Needs. No matter what type of game you’re making, these 10 elements are critical to making a good game. Need help on your board game? A clear objective.

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Game Design Game Designer Tile Games 130

iXie gaming

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

The last thing you need is to release a faulty or error-prone video game to players. Players will not like it and may create a negative impression of your video game due to the poor gameplay experience. Remember, we live in an interconnected world where your video game can go viral overnight, attracting significant traffic.

Quality Assurance 52

Quality Assurance Bug Cross platform Playtesting 52

Big Games

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Game development isn’t as smooth and glamorous as many newbies imagine. Yet, those professionals in mobile game development services know how to tackle these challenges. But the chaos and the desire to create visually stunning and immersive games fuels their determination. Every aspect of the game undergoes examination.

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Game Developer Game Development Development Bug 52

Grid Sage Games

DECEMBER 22, 2023

One of the things I’ve been focusing on a bit more in recent years is a revival of the greater game:non-game work ratio that Cogmind enjoyed in its early years when I was less interested in promoting it and more interesting in just building cool stuff.

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Beta Alpha Mechanics Build 105

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 3, 2018

It’s no secret that board game publishers like to reduce risks. Most publishers have a system in place to help them filter marketable game ideas from unmarketable game ideas. Yet the process, so heavy on rejection, has left many game designers heartbroken. Need help on your board game?

Retail 130

Retail Games Game Design Game Designer 130

iXie gaming

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

The gaming sector has experienced numerous changes over time. Whether it’s game development , every aspect of creating games has experienced new trends in recent times. One of the notable introductions in the industry has been video game test automation.

Simulation 52

Simulation Scripting Games Playtesting 52

PreMortem.Games

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

When Jonathan Barbosa Dijkstra lost his job, just before the pandemic hit, he decided to give his dream of making a game by himself a proper go. I would love to be part of a small team where you’ve got your peers and still have a big impact on the game.” For me, and for others I’m sure, making your own games is ‘the dream’.

Dev 104

Dev Puzzle Prototyping Playtesting 104

Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Beta 11 was a huge milestone in Cogmind development, having completed a comprehensive review of all items and their stats and mechanics in order to rebalance where necessary, a process I wrote about in detail last year. As part of this drive, for months I’ve been creating over 100 new items, most of them including new mechanics.

Balance 52

Balance Mechanics Beta Alpha 52

Game Analytics

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

It’s about allowing players to lose themselves in more than just a game, but a new world. You have to build VR experiences the right way to make this happen. This goal is always top-of-mind for Schell Games. In this interview, we spoke to Schell Games’ Vice President of Product, Charlie Amis, to learn their story.

Dev 91

Dev Playtesting Fantasy Render 91

iXie gaming

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Testing your game before releasing it to the public is crucial. It helps you identify, document, and mitigate defects and bugs in your video game. This improves the game’s overall performance, stability, and security. Also, game testing increases the chances of your game’s success. But what is gameplay testing?

Bug 52

Bug Mechanics Beta Playtesting 52

Interesting Choices

OCTOBER 5, 2011

Also wanted to give a quick update on my various boardgame designs: City Draft - This 7 Wonders inspired drafting game is consistently liked in playtests and has been improving slowly and steadily. The game feels too easy, doesn't have enough strategy, and doesn't seem to quite evoke the feelings that I'm looking for.

Game Design 40

Game Design Game Designer Playtesting Tile 40

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 23, 2023

At that point, Second Dinner revealed that their first project just so happens to be a licensed Marvel IP, which the team has been working on for six months already and is currently beginning to playtest. Fastforward to September of 2022 and the game, Marvel Snap, is finally out globally after a considerable amount of time in soft launch.

Tile 95

Tile Mechanics Feature Mobile 95

PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

For some, the idea of developing a game alone is daunting. Sadly, the reality of the business showed me that the type of games that pay the rent weren’t the type of experiences I wanted to create”, he says. After a five-year hiatus from game development, he returned as a solo developer to create his debut game Repunk.

Dev 156

Dev Playtesting Art Games 156

Radiator Blog

MARCH 16, 2023

Last month, game industry documentary makers 2 Player Productions debuted a massive 32-part YouTube game dev doc series Double Fine PsychOdyssey , chronicling the development of Psychonauts 2 from its earliest glimmers of pre-production in 2015 to its final release in 2021.

Art 59

Art Concepts Dev Studios 59

Mnenad

JULY 8, 2018

But I can now proudly announce that a playable prototype for the video game GenoTerra is finished (and I graduated with the Master in Design *yay*). As you might know, and I repeatedly keep saying, this game forms the practical part of my Master thesis. This work deals with the development and design of an open world game with a high.

Prototyping 52

Prototyping Terrain Open World Rigging 52

Game Global

JULY 12, 2021

Do you want to make people laugh at the silly things the game’s troops say if you click on them enough times? If so, you probably want to be a game writer. You should concentrate on building up your writing portfolio and getting regular game writing work. And that’s valid! What technical pitfalls await the unwary?

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Cutscenes Writing Scripting Localization 52

Brand Game Development

JUNE 20, 2019

In fact, I’ve even said: “ don’t build a board game, build a business.” Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Allow me to introduce you to Jeff Beck of Grandpa Beck’s Games. I’m Jeff Beck.

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Asset Mechanics Games Balance 130

Sirlin

JUNE 13, 2015

I want to show you some of what I'm working (Codex, Flowchart, and a Fighting game) and tell you about Patreon. During Pandante development, I posted dozens of versions of the game board, cards, rules, etc. Patrons helped playtest and also just point out errors or give suggestions how to improve things. Instead.it's fun.

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Fighting Fantasy Art Build 52

Brand Game Development

JANUARY 2, 2018

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the ninth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

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Playtesting Games Advertising Prototyping 130

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 14, 2023

Last week in Istanbul, Google and Deconstructor of Fun brought together a thousand-strong group of high-level mobile game execs to talk about the future of the business. His data and insights were based on US data as a proxy for the western market, and focused on platform privacy, or the “Apple global mobile game recession”.

Games 59

Games Cross platform Mobile Mobile 59

Grid Sage Games

MARCH 10, 2022

Mechanics that are never quite worth taking advantage of, items that haven’t lived up to their potential, or were later superseded by other options but remained unchanged, or even long-term experiments that were included at some point but never updated/expanded/removed. That would be bad :P.

Balance 52

Balance Mechanics Beta Prototyping 52

Interesting Choices

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

I've been fascinated by board games that revolve around drafting for years now, and in early 2011 I wrote a post on the pillars that make these games click. I've created an online prototype for playtesting that has seen almost 2000 games completed with at least a dozen players clocking in at over 100 games apiece.

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Build Tile Point and Click Games 40

Astral Clock Tower Studios

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

This is the place where we break down all aspects of development for 3D Dark Fantasy ARPG Kristala—an indie game in developed by the wildly talented dev team behind women-owned indie games studio, Astral Clocktower Studios. If you're a big lover of fantasy games (and we're betting you are!), Concept Art. 3D Modeling.

Dev 52

Dev Animation Animation Concepts 52

Designer Notes

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

I gave a talk on games and meaning at GDC 2023, which is now available on YouTube: However, I fully scripted the talk ahead of time, so I decided it would be worth taking the time to post the slides online, in three parts to have mercy on your browser. What does this mean for video games? So, why am I talking about DIPS?

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Simulation Agent Game Design Game Designer 77

Grid Sage Games

OCTOBER 2, 2022

The entire mechanic revolves around a single new utility: the Scrap Engine. Although in both cases the results are indeed based on the inputs, the process is not deterministic, so it’s not a pure “crafting” mechanic in that sense. A new utility is born. Constructs can be power sources, propulsion, or weapons.

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Engine Engineering Mechanics Balance 52

Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Cogmind generally has fewer such direct escape options, but teleport mechanics are out there, if an advanced tech not usually available until the late game. As a general concept teleportation technology exists in quite a few varieties throughout the world of Cogmind, though the player only has access to some of them.

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Mechanics Concepts Balance Terrain 52

Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

In the time since Garrisons were added, however, a combination of relevant changes to the game started putting pressure on their original design: Many more full branch maps were added, along with factions, each with their own enticing reasons to visit them compared to the weaker incentives for entering a Garrison.

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Beta Content Balance Mechanics 52

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Written by Enrico D'Angelo Enrico was VP of Product at Activision Publishing running the Free to Play game portfolio and is currently a VP of Product at Roblox. The game was developed by Raven, one of the historical CoD mainline studios, and Activision Shanghai, a local team assembled for the project.

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Content FPS Mobile Mobile 52

Brand Game Development

JULY 20, 2020

Over the last four articles of Start to Finish: Publish and Sell Your First Board Game , I’ve talked about a lot of things that are more complicated than you’d think. That includes the unexpected depth of the board game industry as well as the surprising variety of responsibilities which a self-publishing developer must handle.

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Prototyping Games Playtesting Dev 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 22, 2019

Perfect board game pacing is one of the most underrated aspects of board game design. Somewhere between overwhelm and ennui, there lies a middle ground where a game is perfectly paced. A great board game feels challenging and interesting throughout. Need help on your board game? But how do you do that?

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Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 15, 2019

One of the hallmarks of good board game design is being able to create hard choices. Particularly when hard choices come from simple mechanics. Let’s talk about how you can create hard choices in your board game. Need help on your board game? When selecting a game mechanic, it is the most familiar solution.

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Tile Mechanics Games Puzzle 130

Radiator Blog

JUNE 30, 2022

Zugzwang by Robert Yang This post details my process and intent for making my new release Zugzwang (pronounced in German like /ts'OOK-ts'VAHng/ ) a tactical sex dungeon roguelike cum ritual game. SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils what happens in the game. So this game too is set in a dungeon -- a divine sex maze dungeon.

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Code Educational Education Prototyping 52