The key to future employment in games dev is diversifying your skill set
Game Developer
MARCH 20, 2024
Game design professor Jeremy Bond shares how to prepare your students for the uncertain game industry future.
Understanding Difficulty in Game Design
Game Wisdom
MARCH 19, 2024
Understanding Difficulty in Game Design Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com width="560" height="314" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" Continuing our discussion from soulslikes, for this key to games podcast episode, we’re talking about what it means to understand and breakdown difficulty.…
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A Shout-Out to The Board Game Design Course by Joe Slack
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 22, 2021
That’s why I wanted to take a moment to shout out Joe Slack’s website, The Board Game Design Course. Click here to check out The Board Game Design Course. There are two things I particularly like about Joe’s approach to teaching game design: #1. He also does weekly mailers, too !
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Rafif Kalantan’s mission to champion MENA and SWANA devs
GamesIndustry.biz
APRIL 9, 2024
Part of 2024's cohort is Rafif Kalantan, an emerging narrative and game designer from Saudi Arabia who spoke to GamesIndustry.biz about her journey from studying computer science to winning the 2023 Yugo BAFTA Student Award for her puzzle game Eros Xavier's Love Solutions.
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Game devs talk design methods, system mechanics in design summit
Game Developer
MARCH 13, 2023
For anyone with an interest in game design, Polaris' developer summit has different articles covering various aspects of design development.
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EA rejection of Alice sequel marks end of American McGee’s game dev career
Game Developer
APRIL 10, 2023
With his Alice: Asylum pitch rejected by Electronic Arts, game designer American McGee is leaving the game industry entirely behind.
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The Clash of Choices in Game Design
Game Wisdom
MAY 25, 2023
The Clash of Choices in Game Design Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com One of the many balancing acts of game design is the act of creating cool, interesting, unique, abilities for the player to use, and then balancing said abilities within the scope and design of your game.
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Sega, CWA agree on first major US game dev union contract
GamesIndustry.biz
MARCH 27, 2024
AEGIS calls this the first developer union contract at a major US games firm. It will provide various protections for the union unit across company divisions, including game design, translation, and marketing. Read more
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3 Signs It’s Time to Quit Working a Board Game Design Idea
Brand Game Development
MARCH 29, 2021
You have to block off time for your creativity to flow, do the hard work, and take tough feedback to make the best game you can. I also think that if you’re brand new to board game design, it’s worth pushing a small project all the way through its full lifecycle from start to finish. All of this means trying hard!
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Board Game Designer vs. Developer vs. Publisher
Brand Game Development
DECEMBER 17, 2018
The simple fact is that there are a lot of distinct tasks that have to be handled to turn a game from an idea into reality. This is why I urge each new board game designer to share the workload , delegating tasks to a team instead of doing them all alone. Need help on your board game? Designers make the game’s soul.
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How do you get (or work towards) a promotion as a game designer?
Ask a Game Dev
NOVEMBER 30, 2023
Getting a promotion in the game industry usually requires the designer to take two steps. This means taking on more difficult responsibilities and tasks, the sort that the mid or senior level devs are doing. In my experience, most promotions in a game design career don't happen internally.
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4 Lessons from Exit Games for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JULY 13, 2020
Certainly, board game designers can learn a lot from well-designed escape rooms. Exit Games by Kosmos are the closest we can get to the authentic in-person experience right now. Some of the puzzles in Exit Games, much like in real-life Escape Rooms, are devilishly hard. Exit Games find a workaround.
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How To Know When to Pivot on Your Board Game Design
Brand Game Development
JUNE 29, 2020
A couple of months ago, I asked the readers of this blog to send in answers to the question “ what confuses you most about board game development ?” ” I got a lot of responses, and two of them were about knowing when to pivot during a game design project. Need help on your board game?
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G’day GameDev. I am in my late 30’s and considering returning to school to study Game Design. I currently have no applicable/transferable knowledge, skills or experience and I will be 40 years old when I have finished my studies and looking to find my first job in the industry. Am I too late? Will I be wasting my time (and money) trying to enter the industry at that age?
Ask a Game Dev
FEBRUARY 28, 2024
Is doing game design professionally what you really want, or would doing game design as an amateur hobbyist be enough? The second major question you need to ask yourself is "Do I really need to go to school to study game design?" I'll tell you now that I never went to school for game design.
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6 Reasons Escape Rooms Will Make You a Better Board Game Designer
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 25, 2019
Escape Rooms will make you a better board game designer. This is partly because Escape Rooms are everything that board games aspire to be – complex problem-solving games that appeal to a wide audience and provide a remarkable physical experience. Board games often run the risk of having themes that feel pasted-on.
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7 Lessons from Monopoly for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
MARCH 9, 2020
.” Besides, when we – as gamers and game developers – put aside our frustration for a moment, we can actually see Monopoly for what it is: a solid concept with bad execution. There are a lot of questionable game design decisions that, if corrected, could have made for a fantastic game.
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4 Lessons from Santorini for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 14, 2019
The rules could not possibly be simpler, and yet the strategy of the game gets pretty heady. There are lots of reasons I love, love, love this game. For the purposes of this article, though, we’ll be discussing four lessons for board game designers to take away from it. Physical game presence counts for a lot.
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Learning About Game Design in the Classroom
Game Wisdom
FEBRUARY 13, 2023
Learning About Game Design in the Classroom Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com width="560" height="314" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" For this perceptive podcast, I’m talking with Jeremy Yanofsky who hosts the Engage Show to discuss what does teaching game design and using games in the classroom look like today.
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Growing Indigenous worlds in games
GamesIndustry.biz
OCTOBER 25, 2023
Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Among the presentations in last month's Game Devs of Color Expo was Achimostawinan Games' talk on Growing Indigenous Worlds in Games, which explored the themes of reappropriation and combating stereotypes of creative works for Indigenous people.
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4 Lessons from Sagrada for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 28, 2019
Chance elements are valuable in game design because they keep games from being “solved” in the same way that chess – a perfect information, zero luck game – ultimately was. Take note, aspiring game designers! This is arguably one of the worst feelings that a game can give you.
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4 Lessons from Root for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 16, 2019
By playing it and studying it, we can learn more about effectively implementing asymmetrical game design. It’s also great at teaching us how to use theme to introduce gamers to much grittier games than they would normally play. Not bad for a game about woodland creatures!
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10 Elements of Good Game Design
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 17, 2020
By using my own work as an example, I hope you can read their original write-up with a concrete context and use their lessons to make an incredible game of your own. The post 10 Elements of Good Game Design appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.
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4 Lessons from Twilight Struggle for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
No matter how you feel about it, there is a lot that new board game designers can learn from it. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. In my opinion, pacing is one of the most underrated aspects of board game design.
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4 Lessons from Quacks of Quedlinburg for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 27, 2020
Aspiring board game designers should take note of how the name and the theme tear down barriers that would otherwise keep would-be-gamers out of gaming. The post 4 Lessons from Quacks of Quedlinburg for Aspiring Board Game Designers appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.
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4 Lessons from Pandemic for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 21, 2019
The interesting decision points around balancing short-term and long-term needs and the manageable chance-driven events are worth study by all aspiring game designers. Learn from Pandemic and you’ll make a game people never get sick of.
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4 Lessons from Paladins of the West Kingdom for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 11, 2019
Then they create a game that meets those demands, in short, assuring product-market fit. If you’re a board game designer looking to make a financially successful game, one good place to start is by researching the market. Many game designers see theme as having two primary objectives. Draw players in.
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5 Lessons from Catan for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 7, 2019
For modern game designers, my recommendation is that even in competitive games, you find opportunities to encourage players to form alliances. This isn’t always doable, but when it is, it creates a whole new layer to the game. A lot of games have come and gone and Catan endures.
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4 Lessons from Everdell for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
OCTOBER 28, 2019
The post 4 Lessons from Everdell for Aspiring Board Game Designers appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev. And it has just the right amount of gimmickry to make you pay attention. Not bad for a civilization of woodland creatures!
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4 Lessons from Terraforming Mars for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 4, 2019
I am pleased to say that it is an absolutely fantastic game that’s worth purchasing. I consider this to really valuable for learning game design simply because there is so much going on. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.
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Dev Diary: 03/31/17
Brand Game Development
MARCH 31, 2017
Also, the game doesn’t have a defined win condition yet. Some game designers – and I count myself among them – consider to be win conditions pretty important to games. I’ve pushed a rough version of the game out to Tabletop Simulator for my use only.
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Out Now • Solo dev Pat Naoum of the handpainted The Master’s Pupil: “Creativity is a tool”
PreMortem.Games
AUGUST 9, 2023
As I mentioned, this being my first game, I was learning not only how to game develop but also the language of game design. I feel now I’m a better game designer, because I had the time and space to work on it solo.” Pat Naoum: “Game development takes so long!”
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4 Lessons from Dinosaur Island for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
OCTOBER 14, 2019
Its art, components, and use of late 80s / early 90s nostalgia made the game stand out in a noisy world. From its success, we can all learn how to create games with enticing themes. The post 4 Lessons from Dinosaur Island for Aspiring Board Game Designers appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.
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4 Lessons from Spirit Island for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 13, 2020
Lastly, the variable player powers are balanced in such a way that the game stays fresh for a long time! The post 4 Lessons from Spirit Island for Aspiring Board Game Designers appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.
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Solo dev Pat Naoum of the handpainted The Master’s Pupil: “Creativity is a tool”
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 13, 2023
As I mentioned, this being my first game, I was learning not only how to game develop but also the language of game design. I feel now I’m a better game designer, because I had the time and space to work on it solo.” Pat Naoum: “Game development takes so long!”
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Final Factory by Never Games takes automation into space and adds bullet-hell
PreMortem.Games
APRIL 19, 2024
Things were getting serious three years later when Ryding decided to quit his job as a software engineer and work full time as a game developer. One of my close friends, Ches Denison, joined me working 5-10 hours a week as a playtester, game designer, and just a general jack-of-all-trades-guy.
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So hey, about ten years ago there was basically a phase in video game development where manual saves were disabled in place of (often far apart) automatic saves. It (mostly) passed in its own time, but… what was up with that?
Ask a Game Dev
FEBRUARY 26, 2024
One major guiding principle in game design is "make it easy to do things right and hard to do things wrong". It's a lot easier to ensure the saved game is in a good state under controlled situations, such as with established save points and automatic saves.
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Let’s say someone becomes a game developer, but realizes the gaming industry is not for them for whatever reason. What opportunities there for game developers, particularly designers, outside of the video game industry? I imagine one of them is your former job at the gambling industry.
Ask a Game Dev
DECEMBER 22, 2023
You are correct in that it is possible to transfer that body of knowledge over to the other gaming industry that is casino machines. Beyond that, here are some other roles that game design skills could transfer to. Tabletop, board, or card game design. It's still game design, just not in video games.
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Game Design Deep Dive: Low Brain Power
DameDev.tv
SEPTEMBER 15, 2022
Until next time, happy dev'ing! Check us out on social media [link] [link] [link] Remember, we host live develogy livecasts every Tuesday at 10pm BST on our YouTube channel. You can catch all the recordings, including this episode, in the Devology Livecast course - it's free to join, and also on our YouTube Channel.
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6 Ways to Cope with Kickstarter Anxiety as a Board Game Dev
Brand Game Development
MARCH 16, 2018
Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. You need to make a great game. You need to play-test it a lot – alone, with friends, with family, with blind play-testers, and with game designers. Click here. Will this work?
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Jussi Kemppainen is exploring AI-assisted game development with Echoes of Somewhere
PreMortem.Games
AUGUST 30, 2023
AI affects game design The project’s trajectory shifted with the integration of AI tools. “To produce a point and click game, and to document the creation of a partly AI-generated game.” are answered in his regularly updated dev blog. It became a public AI research project.
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How come some things in a game (typically RPG’s) just…suck? Like of course everything can’t be powerful and some things will be weaker. I mean things that should be reasonably powerful in at least one way but are actually wholly unusable in even the best environments. Like the Bearcat in Borderlands 2. A unique weapon with an extremely high rarity and it’s among the worst weapons in the *series*. I see things like this often. I feel like these instances can’t be something that just slips by developers.
Ask a Game Dev
DECEMBER 15, 2023
Evaluating items is a skill that we game designers must cultivate in players so they can distinguish good items from bad. This is another element of cultivating player skill through intentional design. Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr Frequent Questions: The FAQ
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Favorite Game Dev Blogs?
Grumpy Gamer
JANUARY 16, 2018
In my relentless pursuit of ditching shithole social media and re-powering my RSS feeds, last week I asked for readers favorite Programming Blogs, this week I'd like to ask for favorite Game Dev blogs. game design aspect of the month. Zen of Design. Currently, I follow: Fortress of Doors. INTELLIGENT ARTIFICE.
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Snowman Dev Update (2.2: May 2022)
Digital Ephemera
MAY 28, 2022
Development Updates: Snowman Dev Update (2.2: May 2022) Snowman Dev Update (2.2: 5 June 2022) Snowman Dev Update (2.2: 12 June 2022) Snowman Dev Update (2.2: 14 June 2022) Snowman Dev Update (2.2: 19 June 2022) Snowman Dev Update (2.2: 26 June 2022) Snowman Dev Update (2.2: 10 July 2022). ” How?
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“Game critics” often talk about putting critical plot points in DLC, and then when they describe the story in said DLC it’s clear that the original game’s story works perfectly fine without them. But that makes me wonder where the story in the DLCs came from. Is it usually a cut-for-time-or-budget thing, like other early DLC? Ideas that came later (and if so, how much does player feedback affect things)? Ideas that the devs wanted to work in, but that would just clutter the original narrative?
Ask a Game Dev
DECEMBER 27, 2023
for example, if there’s some sort of new unifying game mechanic in the DLC or expansion (think artifact weapons in WoW Legion), we may need to build content around that new mechanic and old stuff might take too much effort to repurpose. Join us on Discord ] The FANTa Project is currently on hiatus while I am crunching at work too busy.
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