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Why You Can’t Objectively Build Great Games Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com I was reading a piece over on Game Developer that gave me pause for a second about whether this is what gamedesign at the AAA level is about now — focusing on analytics and trying to “math” the perfect … The post Why You Can’t Objectively (..)
This technique isnt just a nostalgic throwback; its a strategic design choice that allows developers to craft visually striking, performance-efficient, and highly engaging experiences. From indie studios to AAA developers, 2.5D Works While 2D and 3D have traditionally been viewed as separate paths in game development, 2.5D
The features offered are also a lot more reminiscent of AAAgames, such as far more material options and advanced visual effects (including circle DOF , volumetric fog, AMD FSR, etc.). Creating games this way is, as a result, more challenging. Is solving these problems enough for Godot to become a top AA / AAAgame engine?
Death is usually (a) game over, (b) rare, or (c) strongly penalized. This is where sports have solved a major gamedesign problem: in most sports, defeated players do not die. Yet I feel that the "basic theory" of most sports is still a pretty unexplored domain by the big sports game studios. (
While tools have improved dramatically, allowing smaller teams to produce more graphically and mechanically complex games than ever before, producing equivalent experiences to AAA mega-studios is still prohibitively expensive. Thrilling as a solo ten-hour-long campaign can be, linear content is expensive to produce.
At Logic Simplified , a leading game development company , we created an FPS game Mr. 45. This is the workflow for creating a AAA model of an AK-47, using Maya, Substance Designer, Substance Painter and Marmoset. I had to thoroughly learn Substance Designer.
I think you have the wrong idea about what gamedesigners do. We're not project leads that pitch entire games, we're [ content creators ] that build the bits of specific content in games - the spells, the monsters, the fights, the classes, the races, the quests, the environments, the stats, the companions, and so on.
In this sense, playing a 75% finished game is more useful than playing a 100% finished game. So this post will focus on my read of the general gamedesign and player experience. Similarly, you can see where the core gamedesign wanted to hit. that a bigger US AAA or a non-US indie would've failed to capture.
It's primarily a feature handled by gamedesign and engineering. The designers figure out how the camera needs to behave for the intended player experience and then the engineers figure out how to translate those behavior rules into code.
If he wants a career in AAAgames, he will need specialized expertise. 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.
“We as a team learned from The Ancients to pace our enthusiasm and scale the game to the size of the studio. There are plenty of indie developers that say this and it’s possibly the most crucial part of gamedesign and development.
Pedersen is the programmer and CEO of the company and Ryder takes on the roles of game director, graphics artist, musician and gamedesigner. We try to make games that we’d like to play ourselves, but we don’t necessarily stick to one game genre”, says Thomas Ryder.
Pedersen is the programmer and CEO of the company and Ryder takes on the roles of game director, graphics artist, musician and gamedesigner. We try to make games that we’d like to play ourselves, but we don’t necessarily stick to one game genre”, says Thomas Ryder.
The conversation shifted from the nuances of game development to the larger, looming concept of the “metaverse.” Today, with an impressive team of 32 people, they’re working on Eco , a virtual society game built inside a self-contained ecosystem. .” But publishers are not the only avenue.
Come “behind-the-scenes” with AWS GameTime Each episode is hosted live and our Twitch viewers get the chance to directly chat with the creators and game industry veterans of their favorite games. The casual interview setting is the perfect way to ask lots of questions about their gamedesign and game development process.
In a past era of gamedesign, we complained when combat games had obligatory stealth sections -- now we have story games with obligatory combat sections. Before you begin the zombie-filled Palace quest, the game UI helpfully advises, "if you're not a fan of action or horror gameplay, feel free to decline this quest."
Roundtable: Creating Non-Toxic Gamer Communities (1 PM Eastern) What gamedesign principles can be used to promote friendlier and harassment-free communities? Join us for a discussion on what strategies gamedesigners can use to create safe virtual spaces that are enjoyable for all players.
Vampire Survivors got big at about the same time and really showed what the much bigger AAAgame does wrong. 25 if your game is extra-fancy. Twin-Stick Shooters Show the Perils of GameDesign This has been my favorite genre since the first of its kind, Robotron: 2084 , came out in 1982. It was great timing.)
This is similar to my tactics games writeup and Enderal (huge Skyrim mod) writeup where I spoil some interesting gamedesigner / systems design things. I don't discuss much of the game narrative. I assume general gamedesign knowledge but minimal Deathloop-specific knowledge.
The game industry really lacks a strongly defined central lexicon for terminology. I’ve held many different titles over the course of my career - scripter, technical designer, system designer, combat designer, gamedesigner, gameplay engineer/programmer, client engineer/programmer, and software engineer/programmer.
The Demand for Multiplayer Games There is a great demand for multiplayer games and it is the tech experts, creative thinkers, and gamedesigners who have made them what they are today. Let’s elaborate on how multiplayer gamedesign isn’t as simple as just throwing together some mechanics and calling it a day.
Sande Chen Profiled as one of the Game Industry's Top 100 Most Influential Women and a 2020 Women in Games Global Hall of Fame winner, Sande Chen is a writer and gamedesigner with over 15 years of experience in the industry.
AAA Boom and Bust Supercell’s “much more typical of a AAAgame launch, and is atypical of a mobile launch” strategy failed. This model emphasizes the role of soft launches: launch when KPIs suggest the game is compelling rather than editorial opinion, whether from marketing, platform, or gamedesign leaders.
The principles and design tenets he acquired in architecture seamlessly blended into his gamedesign. The game “Star Citizen,” for instance, raised eyebrows for accumulating a whopping $600 million in contributions, smashing Guinness World Records.
When I did earlier remasters, I often redid things like the game system, because I thought my wiser gamedesigner brain could make the old stuff better. Never forget that nothing ruins a good game faster than more gamedesign. They were crude, weird, and unbalanced.
Thoughtful consideration of the gamedesign is unsurprising considering the comprehensive development expertise behind it. This allows smaller game companies to produce AAAgame content, and that’s exciting.
We write super-retro, super-low-budget games that don't look great. Our gamedesign is quite solid, but the stories we tell is what keeps us in business. Our games are highly interactive novels with settings, characters, and stories that get people to actually give us real money. Thus, you'll mainly get it in indie games.
Although these lines are increasingly blurred today (as AAA cRPGs will tend to draw heavily from both traditions), there is a clear historical period after the Ultima - Wizardry split that dominates more than two decades of cRPG design.
The Preferred Choice for AAAgames Unreal Engine is well-documented and has great tools for the game development discipline that reduce the manual and resource-intensive tasks in game development.
But a friend showed me Braid and Limbo towards the end of Film School and I finally realised ‘Wait a second, one person can make a game!?’ (I These were small versions of the AAAgames I had played a lot of, but they were just as enjoyable.” Pat Naoum: “Game development takes so long!”
But a friend showed me Braid and Limbo towards the end of Film School and I finally realised ‘Wait a second, one person can make a game!?’ (I These were small versions of the AAAgames I had played a lot of, but they were just as enjoyable.” Pat Naoum: “Game development takes so long!”
Some say Unreal is better just because it’s a common choice for AAA studios. Unity has created a large community and made video game development more accessible to game developers with various expertise levels. Unreal makes it possible to bring literally any vision to life in the form of an advanced video game.
It’s a pretty broad mix. Most devs are still using C++11/14 to my knowledge, with several ongoing legacy titles continuing to use C++03 to support them. One of the biggest pillars of development is that the ability for devs to work (stability) is paramount. If we were to make a change like an engine or software upgrade (e.g.
I think overall, it ends up just looking “ok” because it’s not as cohesive as I wanted, and I probably should have hired more amazing artists to do more large art and effects for the game. For the budget I had for the game ($0), I think it looks pretty good though. It was really cool to win that GameDesign award!
Games that are this massive must be made in an “assembly line” sort of way; they’re just too expensive to put actual surprises into. AAAgames are first and foremost products and their “smooth functionality” is prized above all else.
Standard Disclaimer This game is a huge success in every way, and I am an ant. Though God help any foolish reviewer who tries to give an AAAgame less than 9/10.) Looking at the achievement percentages on my PS5, over 40% of players finished the game, which is a great rate. But in a, you know, Norse way. Sold a ton.
Unity has a reputation for being a complex game engine designed to help developers make AAAgames. However, recently they have made some major pivots which allow non-programmers to more easily use their game development software. Every game engine mentioned in this list is incredibly powerful.
In order to achieve that goal, the game had to overcome two major challenges: it had to be free-to-play and it had to appeal to the Chinese audience. However, the development of CoDO was a rich bootcamp in F2P FPS development and western IP localization. This is a lesson CoDO quickly learned from Chinese Live Ops practices.
If this were true, then puzzle games like Portal or would also not have worked, because after the first few days of Portal’s release, players could quickly just look up solutions to puzzles if they wanted. The same is true for secrets in games.
That makes them the closest thing in games to a rock supergroup: Maya Kylmamaa (Game Lead, Engineer) , was CEO of the now defunct Reforged Studios (a Helsinki studio focused on AAA strategy games). Summarizing: a professional well experienced with PC, with first-hand experience leading a team/company.
While games like Plarium’s RAID Shadow Legends boast a lineup of AAA quality 3D champions, you can get away with less. This game significantly cheaper production budget with assets being done in relatively low-quality 2D. RPG used to be the frontrunner of meta gamedesign.
AAAgame franchises are in the middle of a renaissance on mobile. 4 Freedom of Session Design Lastly and most importantly, TiMi does not restrict the player from playing the game as often or as long as they like. This analysis is written by Adam Telfer , Om Tandon and Nate Ross. Make sure you don’t miss on all of the ?content
Regular mobile game economies are deeper and more consumable-based than those in cosmetic-driven games , which means that Passes on these games can provide more rewards (currencies, boosters, upgrade resources, etc) and keep them perceived as valuable.
Meanwhile, for a degree in Computer Gamedesign, Digipen tuition is almost $60000/year now. Annual tuition to learn to make games at Digipen. They should be begging you for another chapter/song/game level. People should be taking your game home and playing it on their own until late at night. Almost $60K!
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