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?

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Games Playtesting 130

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.

Dev 239

Dev Games Co-op Game Design 239

Brand Game Development

MARCH 31, 2017

Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Naturally, this game is nowhere remotely close to completion. Also, the game doesn’t have a defined win condition yet. Also, the game doesn’t have a defined win condition yet.

Dev 130

Dev Playtesting Simulation Editing 130

PreMortem.Games

APRIL 19, 2024

Final Factory blends factory building and spaceship design with RTS-style troop commanding and classic bullet-hell gameplay. Pretty impressive for a largely solo-developed game. “At At this stage the game is more like a cross between Factorio and Cosmoteer ”, explains Ryding.

Playtesting 129

Playtesting Games Mobile Mobile 129

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. ” Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Visit your local game store.

Demo 130

Demo Playtesting Simulation Advertising 130

Brand Game Development

JUNE 3, 2019

The concept is simple: through gamification, you take the elements we associate with games – point scoring, competition, rules – and apply them to something else. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Gamification is a fantastic tool.

UX 130

UX Playtesting Game Design Game Designer 130

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.

Dev 104

Dev Puzzle Concepts Esports 104

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 3, 2018

It’s no secret that board game publishers like to reduce risks. Most publishers have a system in place to help them filter marketable game ideas from unmarketable game ideas. Yet the process, so heavy on rejection, has left many game designers heartbroken. Need help on your board game?

Games 130

Games Retail Game Designer Game Design 130

PreMortem.Games

MARCH 15, 2024

In Guntouchables by Danish indie developer Game Swing , enemies randomly power up from the upgrades that a team of four players can’t lift out of the levels. This leads to some unexpected and quite frankly, explosive situations as the game progresses. Game Swing was founded in 2013 by five Danish game design students.

Co-op 138

Co-op Playtesting Balance Art 138

PreMortem.Games

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

“As I travel across Africa creating games, there’s something everyone seems to agree on…” says Bethlehem Anteneh , a trained architect, co-founder of SOSTLab and the moderator of the She Got Game panel at Africa Games Week (AGW). Think of a bar where 90% of the people are men.

Game Developer 145

Game Developer Game Development Development Games 145

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? Many of the rules in a game will come from the board, cards, etc.

Balance 130

Balance Games Communications Mechanics 130

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 23, 2017

I’ve talked about the benefits and challenges of working alone in the board game industry. Yet I’m a bit of an odd beast in the board game development world since most people prefer to work in teams. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

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Prototyping Games Playtesting Game Design 130

PreMortem.Games

MAY 1, 2023

BitCake Studio , an indie game development studio based in Brazil, is celebrating its 10th year in the industry. Eduardo Lamhut, the company’s main Game Designer and Creative Director of the upcoming game Atomic Picnic , explains how the company started. There was a bunch of things she wanted in the game.

Studios 104

Studios Build Playtesting Concepts 104

Brand Game Development

JANUARY 2, 2018

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the ninth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? Games are more than just what’s in the box. Who is Carla?

Playtesting 130

Playtesting Games Advertising Prototyping 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

“Theme-first or mechanics-first” might be the most asked “big question” in the board game community. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Theme and mechanics are inseparable parts of board games as a whole. It’s a bit of silly question.

Mechanics 100

Mechanics Playtesting Concepts Art 100

PreMortem.Games

AUGUST 16, 2023

The Ancients is a turn-based survival strategy game where players lead a prehistoric hunter-gatherer tribe through the last ice age. It’s the debut game of Turkish studio Gorilla Softworks. It’s the debut game of Turkish studio Gorilla Softworks. “We We can say it was a joint operation of a tribe of designers.”

Technology 104

Technology Indy Games Playtesting 104

Brand Game Development

MAY 18, 2020

As the coronavirus lockdown continues, a lot of people are having a hard time getting their board game fix. The ability to play board games online, however, has never been easier. That’s because it’s easy to make board games in Tabletop Simulator, an inexpensive board game simulation tool available on the Steam store.

Simulation 130

Simulation Games Demo Playtesting 130

Interesting Choices

OCTOBER 5, 2011

Also wanted to give a quick update on my various boardgame designs: City Draft - This 7 Wonders inspired drafting game is consistently liked in playtests and has been improving slowly and steadily. The game feels too easy, doesn't have enough strategy, and doesn't seem to quite evoke the feelings that I'm looking for.

Game Design 40

Game Design Game Designer Playtesting Tile 40

Brand Game Development

JUNE 11, 2018

Board game conventions have a certain mystique to them. As such, board game developers often find their own interest in conventions piqued. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. We’re giving away a copy on the Pangea Games Facebook.

Prototyping 130

Prototyping Games Localization Demo 130

Sirlin

MARCH 16, 2015

All three of us were involved in this development and playtesting. The core game has simplified and streamlined rules and we go through each one and explain why we made these changes. We also cover all the new (optional) content and what it adds to the game. All three of us were involved in this development and playtesting.

Game Design 40

Game Design Game Designer Playtesting Editing 40

PreMortem.Games

JULY 8, 2024

His turning point came in 2019 at Comic Con Africa, where he discovered a Game Design degree at Wits University’s stand. “I However, it still took a nudge from a dreadful experience in an Applied Mathematics class to propel him to switch from Computer Science to Game Design. I was really naughty and I loved games.

Studios 129

Studios Education Educational Point and Click 129

Ask a Game Dev

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Most of the time, we start by setting a target time we think the game experience should take for a first-time player to feel what we want them to feel, and then add about 50% to that. After we set our estimate, we playtest it to see how it feels. After we set our estimate, we playtest it to see how it feels.

Playtesting 52

Playtesting Fighting Dev Games 52

DameDev.tv

DECEMBER 12, 2022

Do you ever wonder how you can get better at game development? If so, keep reading for some great tips and watch the Livecast for all 12 ways to get better at game development. Rick has more than 14 years experience in the game dev industry, working on IP's that include Mario, Transformers, Captain America and Mortal Kombat.

Game Developer 90

Game Developer Game Development Development Dev 90

Logic Simplified

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

Let’s begin by understanding the concept of levels in a video game. What drives a video game, and what factors control its engagement? In a game, new motives, challenges, and concepts are added to the game world, while ensuring they increase the degree of difficulty at every level. What is Level Design?

Mechanics 60

Mechanics Games Playtesting Concepts 60

PreMortem.Games

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

With Solium Infernum, Australian game developer League of Geeks has revived Vic Davis’ PC cult classic from 2009. A strategy game of politics, intrigue, and betrayal in which players take on the role of a powerful fallen Archfiend and do everything in their power to conquer the Throne of Hell. The second game was Solium Infernum.

Studios 145

Studios Concepts Playtesting Development 145

Grumpy Gamer

JANUARY 18, 2018

How you divide your time between making games and living "real life" ? Dividing my life between making games and real life is a struggle. I had worked at Lucasfilm for 8 years and learned a lot, not just about game design and programming, but also marketing, PR, and production and I felt like I needed to try it all for myself.

Puzzle 130

Puzzle Point and Click Playtesting Art 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 26, 2017

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the eighth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? Playtesting storytelling.

Art 130

Art Mechanics Games Game Development 130

Grumpy Gamer

JANUARY 17, 2018

How you divide your time between making games and living “real life” ? Dividing my life between making games and real life is a struggle. I also had the idea of making adventure games for kids. I floated it by Lucasfilm Games and they weren’t interested. Is it in technology or in better design?

Puzzle 130

Puzzle Point and Click Playtesting Art 130

Radiator Blog

MARCH 16, 2023

Last month, game industry documentary makers 2 Player Productions debuted a massive 32-part YouTube game dev doc series Double Fine PsychOdyssey , chronicling the development of Psychonauts 2 from its earliest glimmers of pre-production in 2015 to its final release in 2021.

Art 147

Art Concepts Dev Studios 147

Ask a Game Dev

DECEMBER 14, 2023

The best way to get better at being a systems designer is to design game systems for games. This doesn't have to be designing systems for video games - a lot of system designers I know are extremely proficient card, board, and tabletop game designers too. Why or why not?

Playtesting 52

Playtesting Dev Build Game Designer 52

Game Dev Unchained

MAY 21, 2024

It’s about capturing the essence of what made the original game special and reinterpreting it for today’s audience.” “It’s about capturing the essence of what made the original game special and reinterpreting it for today’s audience.”

Game Developer 52

Game Developer Game Development Development Balance 52

DameDev.tv

OCTOBER 7, 2022

Industry veterans Rick Davidson & Tim Ruswick* are joined by Stephen Hubbard to understand how he got started in game dev, see what he’s been up to since we last saw him, discuss how to launch your first game and play his new game, Tilecraft. Hosting Your Game On Itch.io

Dev 52

Dev Bug Games Media 52

Raph Koster

JULY 31, 2024

It’s a simple four question exercise you can use to think through what your game is about: What is the game system about? What is the game’s experience about? What is the player’s goal (in the system)? What is the player’s goal (in the experience)?

Playtesting 52

Playtesting Fantasy Mechanics Games 52

PreMortem.Games

AUGUST 15, 2023

The Game Director has asked you to define the backend and infrastructure architecture that will support the game throughout development and live release. On a high level, without needing to pick specific products, how would you design it and what paradigms would you follow?" How would you approach this?"

Studios 104

Studios Engine Engineering Communications 104

Sirlin

OCTOBER 20, 2015

Codex is a new take on customizable card games. Last week I posted a new Raw Game Design podcast episode (for $10+ patrons) where I discuss "reset buttons" in Codex (cards that blow up the board so you can possibly come back from a very bad position). Here's a rundown of what I've been doing over on my Patreon lately.

Fantasy 52

Fantasy Fighting Balance Concepts 52

Keith Burgun

APRIL 14, 2024

With the Kickstarter right around the corner , I’d like to talk about Spellstorm’s breakthrough rule, one that made the game significantly more fun to play, and why that is. But sometime last year, it really became the game that it is now. The story of how BLAST SCORE was marked by the game is long and interesting.

Concepts 69

Concepts Playtesting Game Design Game Designer 69

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 14, 2023

Last week in Istanbul, Google and Deconstructor of Fun brought together a thousand-strong group of high-level mobile game execs to talk about the future of the business. His data and insights were based on US data as a proxy for the western market, and focused on platform privacy, or the “Apple global mobile game recession”.

Games 59

Games Cross platform Mobile Mobile 59