How to write a Game Design Document
Game Developer
AUGUST 15, 2023
Game Design Documents (GDD) have a long history and a different place in many designers' toolboxes. Here's how to write a useful, up-to-date GDD.
What Is Iterative Game Design?
Game Designing
SEPTEMBER 7, 2023
One of the most important steps in game development is iterative game design. It’s built on the idea that games aren’t perfect after one round of development. Let’s learn more about iterative game design and what it entails. Let’s learn more about iterative game design and what it entails.
Game Design 
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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. Exit Games by Kosmos are the closest we can get to the authentic in-person experience right now. Need help on your board game?
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20 Game Design and Development Blogs: Great Writing On How To Make Games
Tiny Hydra
APRIL 22, 2021
The post 20 Game Design and Development Blogs: Great Writing On How To Make Games appeared first on Tiny Hydra. But, as you might guess while reading this very blog post, we’re still strong believers that a regularly updated blog full of well-crafted posts can be an invaluable source of both learning and entertainment.
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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 Root for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 16, 2019
.” – sedlak87, 9/10 “Still, while there are a lot of four-player, asymmetrical games out there, I think this is the best.” As you scroll, you notice people write reviews in a way that implies the balanced nature of the asymmetrical design is surprising. Not bad for a game about woodland creatures!
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4 Lessons from Pandemic for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 21, 2019
A well-designed co-op game like Pandemic stands out among the crowd. There is a relative dearth of good cooperative games out there in the board gaming world. At the time of writing this article, about 6% of board games listed on board game have cooperative play. You know what I’ve noticed?
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Game Writing Job Hunt Misconceptions
Game Design Aspect
APRIL 15, 2022
In this video, game writer Sande Chen lists the top 5 game writing job hunt misconceptions she found during her research on job seekers wanting to break into the video game industry. In 2020 and 2021, I interviewed job seekers who were actively applying to jobs and internships in the video game industry.
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New and Improved Game Writing Portfolio Webinar!
Game Design Aspect
JULY 21, 2021
Last year, I was planning to have another run of Game Writing Primer but the pandemic and subsequent lockdown made that impossible. I checked in with my former students and was delighted to hear of their successes, games , awards, job offers, start-ups, and even a pending wedding between two of them!
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Kyzrati’s Game Design Philosophy
Grid Sage Games
MAY 8, 2022
Recently a player asked me a question regarding my game balance philosophy, and while I can often respond to queries by pointing to some previous article, despite all my writing and no doubt occasionally touching on related topics, I had yet to explicitly do any sort of summary of the philosophy behind my gamedev work.
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Make a Board Game in 28 Days: A Challenge by Brandon the Game Dev
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 1, 2021
Today, I have a challenge for you as a board game designer. I want to see you make a board game in 28 days. That’s why I’ve provided a 28-day game design challenge for you. This 28-day challenge is intended to give you the structure needed to get into the habit of board game design.
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The importance of a game design document & how to create one – part 1
The Knights of Unity
FEBRUARY 5, 2021
After all, in a couple of hours that you would spend on writing all the ideas down, you might be coding and make these ideas come to live instead, right? If you decide to work on your design doc at the beginning of the project, your future self will probably thank your past self on many occasions. Well, not exactly. .
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A friend of mine wants to become a game designer without learning any other disciplines in game dev, he seems very sure this is possible but his confidence comes off as “idea guy” to me. I like thinking about design as well and how it could all fit together cohesively but I’m worried he’s setting himself up for failure by not learning another discipline to go along with it. Am I correct in this thought or am I being an jerk?
Ask a Game Dev
AUGUST 3, 2023
At the very least he'll need to create his own assets and/or write his own code. If you look at any indie game, you'll generally see a small team of a handful of devs who are each responsible for a huge amount of different kinds of work. There's just too much work to be done without enough hands to do it within a small team.
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How much paperwork does a game designer or other “trench level” game developers deal with? Does the amount of paperwork increase the higher up the chain you go?
Ask a Game Dev
FEBRUARY 9, 2024
Besides the leads, some specific disciplines tend to do more paperwork - QA spends a huge amount of time filling out bug reports, designers have to write design documents, and production have to create most/all of the non-bug tasks to be tracked.
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Makhoba Kamogelo: “Don’t let fear stop you from reinventing yourself”
PreMortem.Games
NOVEMBER 13, 2023
A community manager and new game designer. A game filled with cute armoured babies on a brave mission to save their daycare from a goblin invasion. She explains, “Creativity ended the minute high school began, you had to do things a certain way and the only room for creativity was in writing English essays.”
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Save the Date: Webinars Coming
Game Design Aspect
MARCH 21, 2022
The autobiographical essay was the first memoir type of writing that I had ever published and it was later included in Covid-19 memory projects and in ArtsWestchester 's exhibition, " Together apART: Creating During Covid." At the same time, I've been interviewing hiring managers and updating my webinar on game writing portfolios.
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Game of Thrones Predictions from a Game Designer
Sirlin
APRIL 26, 2019
My predictions below relied on the premise that good writing would basically force some events to happen, and I was thrown by a loop by the, well, not good writing. I leave this prediction post up for reference anyway —- I’m going to give my predictions for how Game of Thrones ends up. You can throw all that out. Bran’s power.
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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.” Next, I start generating assets for the game with AI, like locations, character designs etc.”
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The Ten Player Motives
iHobo
FEBRUARY 22, 2023
The ten player motives (10PM) is a player satisfaction model developed by International Hobo Ltd, one that we use as a key tool when helping clients with the challenging process of crafting enjoyable, engaging, and memorable games.
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A Day in the Life of a Game Writer
Game Design Aspect
JULY 6, 2021
This year, when I interviewed numerous aspiring game writers and narrative designers, I discovered that many were a bit fuzzy on the actual day-to-day tasks of the job. It was much like when people ask about game design and then find out with surprise that the actual job entails spreadsheets.
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Forging Socio-Emotional Connections in Games
Game Design Aspect
JUNE 2, 2022
In this article, game designer Sande Chen relates important lessons learned from the design of that game company's games, Journey and Sky. The conversation really tied in with a previous panel topic at CIMFest, Designing Non-Toxic Game Communities. In addition, players cannot disguise themselves.
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Game Idea Lists
Game Design Aspect
JULY 10, 2020
In this article, game designer Sande Chen discusses the practice of generating game ideas on a daily or weekly basis. In writing classes, students sometimes are asked to journal or write daily. Similarly, game design students may be asked to generate lists of game ideas or mechanics.
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PlayCrafting Student Spotlight Update
Game Design Aspect
DECEMBER 31, 2020
It was a delight to hear from my former game writing students at PlayCrafting. They attended the one-night Game Writing Portfolio Workout sessions or the multi-week intensive Game Writing Primer course. Mary Georgescu is starting a new job as a game designer at Exploding Kittens.
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Writing Better Practical Tests For The Games Industry
Tiny Hydra
MAY 27, 2021
I have been doing design and development tests for over a decade now (I even did some art tests early in my career) and I have come to the conclusion that most tests are bad. The idea of testing people isn’t bad, in fact, it’s imperative in the games industry.
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Indie Gaming’s Last Stand: How Willem Delventhal Is Battling Corporate Dominance!
Game Dev Unchained
MAY 9, 2023
The Transformative Landscape of Game Development: A Deep Dive with Willem Delventhal As a digital ecosystem thrives and transforms at a rapid pace, a recent conversation with game designer and educator Willem Delventhal offered insights into the evolving realm of game development.
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Harvest Island is a mix of farming and horror “I figured it’s a unique premise”
PreMortem.Games
OCTOBER 18, 2023
I love to see players’ reactions when they play my game. Ironically, my cousin hated game design and instead works in real estate.” The cost of development is cheaper if you know how to draw, program, and write music. Or sometimes I would throw an entire idea away because it didn’t fit the game.
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Picking Apart Baldur's Gate 3, Part 2 (Talkin' 'Bout D&D)
The Bottom Feeder
APRIL 9, 2024
Then I can sell my games to them eventually, much as a catfish eats the scum at the bottom of a lake. It's also a great opportunity to pick apart a good game's design. If a game sells well, that means every choice it made was correct, and you should pick over the carcass for ideas to steal with all speed.
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Screen Time Debate: Puffs or Broccoli?
Game Design Aspect
SEPTEMBER 5, 2022
In this article, game designer Sande Chen delves into the parental guilt associated with app usage, as documented in the book, Baby, Unplugged. Hope you're having a good holiday and not working :) In the previous months, I've been following up on research about kid games, especially those for the preschool set. Happy Labor Day!
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Tasty Humans Launches on Kickstarter Tomorrow
Brand Game Development
JUNE 24, 2019
To celebrate the launch, I’ll be releasing a five-part case study on the development of the game every week for the next five weeks. I didn’t write these articles – Ryan Langewisch did. He is the designer of Tasty Humans. He won Panjam, a 48-hour board game design contest that Pangea ran in 2018.
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Finding your true love may win the game in Fabledom by Grenaa Games
PreMortem.Games
APRIL 12, 2023
One day, Dave Kosak, who helped us with some writing, suggested the idea of finding true love. About the studio name Grenaa Games: “Grenaa is my family name from my mothers side, so it adds a nice personal touch I think! I do all the coding, game design, day to day production stuff, basically everything else.
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We. The Refugees. Ticket to Europe by Act Zero is a redemption for its maker
PreMortem.Games
MARCH 17, 2023
25 years old, fresh out of script writing studies and feeling detached from society. I felt like an imposter most of the time I was working on the game. The process of writing the 300,000-word script took me 20 months. Jędrzej Napiecek was not in a good place. To be honest, he just felt so… useless.
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OUT NOW • The joy of building and the delight of destruction in Abriss
PreMortem.Games
SEPTEMBER 6, 2023
Game Designer Johannes Knop explains the success of the game by tapping in on the innate fascination of people for destruction. “ Most important part is that we have a lot of people that make games around us. Both Friedrich and Till will probably write their Masters Thesis about the process of making ABRISS.”
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Zoochosis by Clapperheads will make you fear those lovely animals in the zoo
PreMortem.Games
APRIL 22, 2024
When we founded Clapperheads, we were certain that we wanted to specialize in horror games”, explains CPO & Lead Game Designer Valentin Shchekin (Serbia). With our first game Sparky Marky, we needed to quickly make a game to make a name for ourselves, especially during such a challenging time for the industry.
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6 Ways to Find Play-Testers for Your New Board Game
Brand Game Development
APRIL 27, 2020
Play-testing is the most important part of board game design. It’s how you turn rough, raw ideas into polished, ready-to-play games. Write down everything they say and keep a good attitude even if you disagree. You may also be able to find a game design or play-testing group local to where you live as well.
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The Definitive Guide to Game Development: A Step-by-Step Process
iXie gaming
DECEMBER 2, 2022
Game development is the process of creating games. The term “game” covers various types, from the simple to the complex. The two most common types of game development are game design and programming. A game has a specific purpose: to be fun for players.
Upcoming CIMFest Keynote: Flavored by Authenticity
Game Design Aspect
JUNE 9, 2021
Roundtable: Creating Non-Toxic Gamer Communities (1 PM Eastern) What game design principles can be used to promote friendlier and harassment-free communities? Join us for a discussion on what strategies game designers can use to create safe virtual spaces that are enjoyable for all players.
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Getting Started with Web GL Game Development
iXie gaming
MAY 8, 2023
In this article, we’ll explore the basics of WebGL game development, including its advantages, the tools needed to get started, and some tips for creating engaging and successful games. Working with shaders and optimizing game performance are some of the primary methods used in WebGL game development.
2020 Women in Games Hall of Fame Awards
Game Design Aspect
SEPTEMBER 8, 2020
I'm thrilled to be shortlisted for one of the 2020 Women in Games Hall of Fame Awards and I am particularly excited that I can spotlight learning games and serious game development within the global game industry. Sande Chen is a writer and game designer with over 15 years of experience in the game industry.
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Game storytelling and narrative design
Jaunty Bear Games
JANUARY 31, 2023
Player choice and agency: Giving players meaningful choices and consequences throughout the game that allow them to shape the story and the outcome of the game. The post Game storytelling and narrative design appeared first on Jaunty Bear Games.
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How To Perform Video Game Critical Analysis
Game Designing
SEPTEMBER 8, 2023
Here are the basic steps in creating a video game analysis: Determine Your Objective Why are you writing a video game critical analysis? It’s a question that only you can answer, and it will impact how you write the critique. It will make it easier for you to find the right voice when writing your analysis.
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How to Make Board Game Rules
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
This week while working on my current board game design, a lot of things have come into focus. Now it’s time to start tweaking board game rules. This is where board game design often becomes very tricky. Need help on your board game? Be direct when writing rules. Playtest a Ton.
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How To Play-Test the Rules of Your Board Game
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? What are some guidelines for writing good rules? Sean: Sure!
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20 New Year’s Resolutions for Board Game Devs in 2020
Brand Game Development
DECEMBER 30, 2019
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. Play-test with game designers. Let’s say you’ve made light games.
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Squad 51 vs. the Flying Saucers is a tribute to sci-fi movies of the ’50s
PreMortem.Games
APRIL 3, 2023
.” When game development started, the story was already written, although many changes were made after that. However, the planning of the development, like the game design document, happened at the same time. Rosa: “It would be impossible to write a screenplay without knowing exactly how the levels would be played!”
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