Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 22, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. I’ve already play-tested this game a ton. I even blind play-tested it at a game design convention. Need help on your board game? Just here for Highway s & Byways updates? Click here.

Dev 130

Dev Point and Click Games Mechanics 130

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 23, 2017

I’ve talked about the benefits and challenges of working alone in the board game industry. Yet I’m a bit of an odd beast in the board game development world since most people prefer to work in teams. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

Prototyping 130

Prototyping Playtesting Games Game Design 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 17, 2018

Creating board games takes an enormous amount of time and effort. 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.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Development Games 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 8, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. This is a process I follow to ensure a game’s quality. This method may not be appropriate for every developer, every team, or every game, but it is one I like. Need help on your board game?

Point and Click 130

Point and Click Dev Games Prototyping 130

PreMortem.Games

JULY 17, 2023

The brutal and bloody combat game from Slovenian developer Triternion has already been very successful for the last 4 years on PC. This is a completely different beast from a shooter.” “ Mordhau at its core has always been about melee combat”, says Jonathan Dunn, Game Designer at Triternion.

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Console First person PC Mesh 104

Brand Game Development

MAY 14, 2018

This is part one of four in the Failure Recovery series in Start to Finish: Publish and Sell Your First Board Game. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. With games, this involves the nature of the project itself.

Game Developer 130

Game Developer Game Development Development Concepts 130

Ask a Game Dev

MARCH 29, 2024

It’s a functioning version of all planned game systems in the game working together for a representative final game experience. Prototype - A playable example of a single gameplay system to prove out the concept. Prototype - A playable example of a single gameplay system to prove out the concept.

Prototyping 62

Prototyping Demo Dev Concepts 62

Brand Game Development

MARCH 16, 2020

To get the Start to Finish series going, I’ve spent some time discussing games, game development, and the amount of careful messaging that is needed to create and sell a great game. At this point, you may be beginning to have some healthy doubts about the benefits and drawbacks of self-publishing a game.

Games 130

Games Quality Assurance Art Game Developer 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

For the last few years, we’ve been living through a glorious age: the Great Board Game Renaissance. In a world aglow with smartphones, tablets, and those annoying billboards that change every five seconds on the side of the road, analog gaming has become a welcome retreat for millions. Need help on your board game?

Games 130

Games Art Media Game Design 130

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

Radiator Blog

APRIL 18, 2022

There's been some game dev twittering about Unity vs. Unreal lately. And if you're making the typical aspirational photorealistic action game, you'll probably want UE's gameplay architecture and free photoscan assets too. I'm also interested in making web browser games as a way to bypass platform censors.

Engine 40

Engine Engineering Rigging Bug 40

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 20, 2017

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the third 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.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Games Game Design Game Designer 130

PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

For some, the idea of developing a game alone is daunting. Yet, for indie dev Almar, it offered an escape from the corporate rat race he felt trapped in. 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. Which are its verbs?

Dev 158

Dev Playtesting Art Games 158

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 30, 2019

Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. With that in mind, I want to help you come up with some New Year’s Resolutions of your own, ones specifically related to board game design. Create your first board game. Card games count, too!

Dev 130

Dev Prototyping Games Game Design 130

PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Studio owner and Lead Developer Max Hermann originally developed the idea for the game in the time when he was still a computer science student and active in the RimWorld modding scene. “I Exceedingly difficult The team first built the game in Unity. Ascent of Ashes is inspired by other games besides RimWorld as well.

Dev 117

Dev Development Prototyping Feature 117

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the fourth 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.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Games Balance Development 130

Deconstructor of Fun

FEBRUARY 7, 2021

Eric is the author of the book Freemium Economics and the founder of Mobile Dev Memo , the ultimate growth blog and podcast. It is tempting for mobile games marketing teams to think of 2021 as being dominated by Apple’s impending new privacy policy for iOS, App Tracking Transparency (ATT). Which game genres are more at risk?

Advertising 52

Advertising Mobile Gaming Mobile Mobile 52

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

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 18, 2017

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the seventh 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.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Art Games Puzzle 130

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.

Playtesting 130

Playtesting Games Advertising Prototyping 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 11, 2017

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the sixth 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.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Concepts Writing Games 130

Brand Game Development

JUNE 26, 2017

Today, I’d like to challenge one of the most fundamental assumptions of this blog: that self-publishing your board game is the best way to go. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. You do the game development. You promote the game.

Quality Assurance 130

Quality Assurance Games Art Dev 130

Brand Game Development

FEBRUARY 19, 2018

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the sixteenth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. One of the trickiest parts of self-publishing a board game can be finding good artists. It’s true.

Art 130

Art Games Development Prototyping 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 3, 2017

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. This week, in the spirit of Halloween, I wrote Performing a Board Game Autopsy: Learning from Your Mistakes. In April of this year, I did an autopsy on my first game, War Co. Click here.

Point and Click 130

Point and Click Media Games Art 130

Radiator Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2022

SPOILER WARNING: This post spoils what happens in my new game That Lonesome Valley. It's mostly "safe for work" even if the actual game is not. That Lonesome Valley is a short gay cowboy romance game about walking, sheepherding, and kissing. My sex games are often romantic, but they're not romances.

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Pixel Film Art NPC 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.

Prototyping 130

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?

Tile 130

Tile Games Playtesting Balance 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. I first prototyped it back in 2019, but I didn't really know how to finish it. SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils what happens in the game.

Code 52

Code Educational Education Prototyping 52