5 tips for no-bull indie game design
Game Developer
OCTOBER 24, 2024
Solo VR dev Zander Dejah, formerly gameplay programmer on Vader Immortal, explores finding the fun with Vendetta Forever.
The Struggles of Studying Game Design
Game Wisdom
FEBRUARY 4, 2025
The Struggles of Studying Game Design Josh Bycer josh@game-wisdom.com It’s a new year and that means it’s time to once again ponder the nature of game design.
Game Design 
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Solo dev Esteban Hernandez spent 7 years on Creo God Simulator: “I’ve learned perseverance”
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 5, 2025
. “I try my best to accept that I may not be the most talented or brilliant game developer in the world, but that I am capable of making something fun and beautiful.” Years ago, I became a solo developer initially because I wanted to make games, plain and simple. ” Why did you become a solo developer?
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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.
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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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Solo dev Vladyslav Pidiashenko “I hope IHAS will inspire players to better their lives”
PreMortem.Games
OCTOBER 30, 2024
After finishing IHAS, I will start to build a strong team to work on games that are beyond my scope a solo dev.” I’ve been working on a game for close to 3 years at this point and the whole idea of IHAS has transpired through these years of development. How did you get the idea for IHAS? How do you deal with that? “
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Favorite Game Dev Blogs?
Grumpy Gamer
JANUARY 15, 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. Not sure what that means, so let’s go with game designers are lazy.
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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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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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4 Lessons from Imhotep for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
JUNE 1, 2020
Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Like many board games, Imhotep has a lot to teach board game designers. One of the elements of great game design is interaction. Use simple mechanics to create options for counterplay.
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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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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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I really liked your recent answer about math in game design, but im curious what KINDS of math game designers should learn. Like, what is geometry useful for vs., say, calculus? Are there any fields of math that aren’t useful in game design?
Ask a Game Dev
DECEMBER 24, 2024
Are there any fields of math that arent useful in game design? You really dont need advanced math knowledge for game design, but it is very useful to have some understanding of advanced math for game programmers (especially vector math and understanding of matrices, trigonometry, and quaternions).
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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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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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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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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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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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 Ticket to Ride for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 11, 2019
On top of that, the experience for beginners and the experience for advanced players are different enough to keep the game engaging even as you learn more about it. For these reasons and more, we’re going to dive into Ticket to Ride and talk about what new board game designers can learn from this 15-year-old game.
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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 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 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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Why You Can’t Objectively Build Great Games
Game Wisdom
NOVEMBER 8, 2024
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 game design at the AAA level is about now — focusing on analytics and trying to “math” the perfect … The post Why You Can’t Objectively (..)
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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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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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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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4 Lessons from Twilight Imperium for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 30, 2019
It has to be the benchmark by which your design, should you decide to make something as heavy as this game, is measured. No two games should be the same. So many of the great games that I find inspiring from a game design perspective share this quality. You can call it replayability or variance.
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A follow up to your answer about veilguard (was really hoping you would touch on that one). Why do game companies that have a “bad” release always seem to start from the bottom of the pyramid when it comes to restructuring and recouping losses? Why fire low level devs who did their best with what they had, when the companies have people in senior positions making hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not more) that they could just cut from? Why do the trenches always get the punishment first?
Ask a Game Dev
FEBRUARY 3, 2025
The next factor is that each major experience level up a dev attains tends to be a geometric difference in productivity. [ A large task that would take a junior dev two months to complete might take a mid-level dev one month and a senior dev only a week or two ].
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The Last Three by Csaba Putnai “Discipline and planning are essential, but don’t forget flexibility”
PreMortem.Games
JANUARY 6, 2025
Deliberate difficulty Through the games design, Putnai weaves subtle commentary on modern society. The Last Three combines these two themes: perseverance and the power of relationships are at the forefront, while players find themselves in a unique, challenging world.
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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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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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Former Piranha Bytes devs form Pithead Studio
GamesIndustry.biz
JULY 8, 2024
Jennifer and Bjorn Pankratz – who previously served Piranha Bytes as story and game designer and creative director, respectively – hope to "develop immersive and fantastic indie games " at their new start-up, Pithead, which was formed on July 4, 2024.
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Is there much of a difference between a digital media degree and a game design degree when it comes to applying for jobs within the gaming sector? Or is it dependent on the role you are applying for?
Ask a Game Dev
DECEMBER 4, 2024
BA in Game Design" ticks a box that "BA in Digital Media" likely won't, though the kind of degree is only one of many keywords we're looking for. We're ultimately looking for candidates who can do the work that the job entails - cinematic designer, gameplay programmer, texture artist, associate producer, QA engineer, and so on.
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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 Azul for Aspiring Board Game Designers
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 18, 2019
For those of you who are fans of Azul , what else can we learn from this game to become better designers? The post 4 Lessons from Azul for Aspiring Board Game Designers appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.
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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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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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Top 7 Game Dev Myths Explored
DameDev.tv
DECEMBER 16, 2022
as we explore the top 7 game dev myths Laurie (Avocado Fire) joins Rick Davidson & Tim Ruswick* to discuss these 7 game dev myths and address any concerns that you have. He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's
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The EU has just banned virtual premium currencies in video games that represent, requiring the games use the actual currency amounts. Thoughts on this new law?
Ask a Game Dev
MARCH 31, 2025
It would likely increase engagement by showing that players are earning "value" when they finish quests and obtain premium currency through playing the game by reinforcing that they are obtaining things worth money. I think that the in-game stores will use this to direct players toward better value bundles and packs to buy.
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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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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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