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.
This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Game Developer
OCTOBER 24, 2024
Solo VR dev Zander Dejah, formerly gameplay programmer on Vader Immortal, explores finding the fun with Vendetta Forever.
PreMortem.Games
DECEMBER 24, 2024
Here at PreMortem.Games, we have great admiration for developers who tackle the entire game development cycle on their own. Because, lets be honest, creating games is hard and it takes a special kind of developer to choose the solo path. This game represents me as a developer, he says. I get excited to implement wacky ideas!
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
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 Developer
MARCH 20, 2024
Game design professor Jeremy Bond shares how to prepare your students for the uncertain game industry future.
PreMortem.Games
FEBRUARY 5, 2025
What started as a passion project has grown into a full-fledged god game blending city-building, resource management and player-driven storytelling. I became a solo developer initially because I wanted to make games, plain and simple, he says. I have full freedom and control over every aspect of my game.
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.
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.
PreMortem.Games
MAY 24, 2024
Jason Nicot , a French solo game developer operating under the name Choose Red , recently announced his latest game Sanctua. In this co-op multiplayer game a group of players have to work together to escape a cursed tomb. He went into transportation management, but game development never really left his mind.
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.
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 (..)
PreMortem.Games
OCTOBER 30, 2024
“What inspires me is the belief that I can make a great video game that will influence the player and make them reflect on their life, and hopefully make a change for the better.” When I read books, play video games or work on projects. For weeks, I thought about what I wanted to do and rediscovered my passion for video games.
Radiator Blog
FEBRUARY 10, 2025
But for now, it'd really help us if you wishlisted the game on Steam or idled in the Discord , mostly so we can show those stats to convince rich people to give us money to finish making the game. If you're interested in why we're making this game / what's going on. But I've been threatening to make a sports game for a while.
PreMortem.Games
JANUARY 6, 2025
Its his second game after the release of his debut, Bob A Thousand Lives , which he developed in his forties. The Last Three is a game about the last stone tiger family that lives deep in a magical forest. Deliberate difficulty Through the games design, Putnai weaves subtle commentary on modern society.
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.
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 22, 2021
If you’re a long-time reader of this site, you likely know that my passion is helping people create their first board game. After all, that’s what the Start to Finish: Publish and Sell Your First Board Game series is all about. Click here to check out The Board Game Design Course.
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?
Brand Game Development
JUNE 1, 2020
In any case, we received this game as a gift from grandmother, who apparently has a really good eye for which hobby board game to buy! Naturally, we needed to set the game up and take a few photos to send to her, if nothing else. Need help on your board game? One of the elements of great game design is interaction.
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 14, 2019
Santorini is a fantastic board game that came out about two years ago. In its heart, it’s an abstract strategy game that could have come from antiquity. It has been given the modern board game polish, though, with adorably cutesy art of Greek gods, and an incredibly photogenic set of stackable plastic components.
Ask a Game Dev
DECEMBER 24, 2024
This math is necessary for understanding and answering one of the fundamental questions in game development:How long will this take? How long should one match in my fighting game take? Are there any fields of math that arent useful in game design? Note that this is by no means exhaustive.
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? Save your old work.
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 25, 2019
Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Escape Rooms will make you a better board game designer. With this in mind, here are six reasons I believe that Escape Rooms will make you a better board game designer.
Brand Game Development
MARCH 29, 2021
From time to time, I see board game creators on social media who have been working on the same design day-in, day-out for years on end. The first are people making a board game as a labor of love, who know they’re taking their sweet time on it, and they’re OK with it. Need help on your board game?
Brand Game Development
MARCH 9, 2020
Monopoly: it’s one of the oldest board games in the store. It’s one of the top 10 best-selling board games. It’s also a terrible board game. When board gamers need a game to mercilessly mock , they look no further than Monopoly. Need help on your board game? Monopoly has a staggeringly low 4.4
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 28, 2019
Sagrada is one of my recent favorite board games. It is fundamentally a pretty simple game, but it has a lot of really endearing qualities. It’s ultimately a puzzle game, but a very attractive one with some subtle elements that arise from it being a nearly perfect information game where players draw from the same draft pool.
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 11, 2019
Along with games like Catan and Pandemic , Ticket to Ride helped turn board gaming into the juggernaut of a hobby that we know and love today. It’s an elegant game that can be learned very quickly. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 17, 2020
When I was a neophyte game developer, I found an excellent article by Wizards of the Coast, creators of Magic: the Gathering , called Ten Things Every Game Needs. This two-part article was so influential in my initial design of War Co. This two-part article was so influential in my initial design of War Co. Constraints.
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 7, 2019
In 1995, the game formerly known as Settlers of Catan was nothing more than the obscure creation of designer Klaus Teuber. The board game market as we know it today did not exist yet. Catan was the first major hobby board game to come into existence. Need help on your board game? Need help on your board game?
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 21, 2019
It’s time to talk about Pandemic – one of the greatest games ever made. Pandemic is an evergreen game with a multitude of variants and legacy games. It’s also the first cooperative game for a lot of gamers. Need help on your board game? Can you hear that coughing? You know what I’ve noticed?
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 16, 2019
Leder Games really nailed it when they came out with their board game Root in 2018. It’s broken into and remained within the Board Game Geek top 50. Need help on your board game? Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.
Brand Game Development
SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
Twilight Struggle has been considered one of the best board games of all time. It’s been on the Board Game Geek Top 10 for as long as I can remember and for a while was the #1 game. 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?
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. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.
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
Twilight Imperium is among the greatest board games of all time according to BoardGameGeek. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Nevertheless, there are great lessons we can learn from this game with even a casual analysis.
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!
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 27, 2020
It has since remained a hot game on Board Game Geek and a perennial favorite in Pangea Games board game giveaways! So with that in mind, what can we learn from this award-winning board game with a silly name? Need help on your board game? Unfortunately, push-your-luck games can quickly become obnoxious.
Brand Game Development
OCTOBER 28, 2019
Last year, Everdell by Starling Games raised nearly half a million dollars on Kickstarter. It has remained a popular board game since, regularly topping out the Board Game Geek Hotness and showing up multiple times as a giveaway prize in Pangea contests. Everdell is a worker placement, tableau-building board game.
Brand Game Development
NOVEMBER 11, 2019
In March of 2019, Paladins of the West Kingdom by Garphill Games raised nearly a million New Zealand dollars (around $600,000 USD) on Kickstarter. Ever since then, Paladins of the West Kingdom has been on the Board Game Geek Hotness list nearly every time I’ve checked. Need help on your board game?
Ask a Game Dev
MARCH 31, 2025
For those who do not understand this change, in the EU any in-game purchase that can be made for paid/premium currency must display the actual cost in local currency to players. I think that the in-game stores will use this to direct players toward better value bundles and packs to buy. buying the smallest pack of premium currency).
Brand Game Development
FEBRUARY 18, 2019
Azul has taken the board game world by storm. Like Sagrada , it’s a gorgeous and approachable puzzle game with emergent complexity that becomes ever more apparent with more plays. It’s also, somehow, always trending on social media and Board Game Geek. Need help on your board game?
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.
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.
Brand Game Development
OCTOBER 14, 2019
A couple of years ago, Dinosaur Island was a massively successful game. Even now, two years later, the game’s name has enough cultural cachet to lead to the most popular board game giveaway Pangea has ever sponsored. Need help on your board game? Take one good look at this game. Let’s be clear.
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 ].
Brand Game Development
JANUARY 13, 2020
That is by no means a small amount to raise, but what’s interesting is that Spirit Island has remained on the Board Game Geek Hotness list off and on for almost three years. Clearly, there is much more to this game than what immediately meets the eye. Need help on your board game? You’re next, agriculture games!).
Expert insights. Personalized for you.
We have resent the email to
Are you sure you want to cancel your subscriptions?
Let's personalize your content