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.
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Game Developer
OCTOBER 24, 2024
Solo VR dev Zander Dejah, formerly gameplay programmer on Vader Immortal, explores finding the fun with Vendetta Forever.
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 Developer
APRIL 10, 2023
With his Alice: Asylum pitch rejected by Electronic Arts, game designer American McGee is leaving the game industry entirely behind.
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.
PreMortem.Games
MAY 24, 2024
Since childhood, Nicot always had a fascination with video games, but when it was time to pick a career, game designer wasn’t on the radar. He went into transportation management, but game development never really left his mind. The Sanctua game design document was 95% complete before I started coding.
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 !
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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?
PreMortem.Games
OCTOBER 2, 2024
Solo devs have to be generalists, and that’s not for everyone”. Typically I’ll design and iterate alone, make playable builds, then have others play them and check the response and any (new) problems that crop up in the user’s experience. .” I think this helps with keeping game dev burnout at bay.”
PreMortem.Games
JANUARY 29, 2024
During that time he crossed paths with Cho Si-wook , now the lead game designer at Funnylocks Game Studio. Si-wooks’s deep passion for game development inspired Hee-sang to take a leap of faith. Leveraging his accumulated experience, I decided to create a game company dedicated to making innovative games”, he says.
Brand Game Development
APRIL 23, 2018
Much like my old staple How to Get Big on Twitter as a Board Game Dev , I’ll be covering everything you need to know to get started on Facebook as a board game developer. New game devs: don’t write off Facebook because it’s expensive. We’ll get to that in more detail below.
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? “
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.
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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