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

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 Development 145

Game Development Game Developer Development Games 145

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

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 Playtesting Games 104

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

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 40

Mechanics Games Playtesting Prototyping 40

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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 Development 90

Game Development Game Developer Development Dev 90

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

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

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.

Prototyping 130

Prototyping Playtesting Games Game Design 130

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

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

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

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

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

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

iXie gaming

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Getting started with your first NFT game development venture can be interesting. But is the NFT game development market worth entering? The global play-to-earn (P2E) NFT games market is predicted to reach $3.6 So, yes – NFT game development is worth it. But what are NFT games? But what are NFT games?

Game Development 52

Game Development Game Developer Development Asset 52

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

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

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

Keith Burgun

JANUARY 4, 2023

Back in September, I introduced people to my upcoming card game, Spellstorm. Let me quickly explain how the game worked in broad strokes, and then I can explain the main problem. ” A lot of the basic MOVE/BUMP dynamics were inherited from my 2019 card game, Dragon Bridge. What Spellstorm Was. The Problems.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Game Design Game Designer Playtesting 52

Keith Burgun

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

In any case, this game started out in late 2021 as a sequel to Dragon Bridge, my first card game. Over the last 10-11 months, and over 100 different numbered versions of the game, the game has evolved into… really, its own thing, and that’s why the title no longer reflects its Dragon Bridge origins.

Playtesting 52

Playtesting Writing Graphics Fighting 52

Designer Notes

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

I gave a talk on games and meaning at GDC 2023, which is now available on YouTube: However, I fully scripted the talk ahead of time, so I decided it would be worth taking the time to post the slides online, in three parts to have mercy on your browser. What does this mean for video games? So, why am I talking about DIPS?

Simulation 78

Simulation Agent Game Design Game Designer 78

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

iXie gaming

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Testing your game before releasing it to the public is crucial. It helps you identify, document, and mitigate defects and bugs in your video game. This improves the game’s overall performance, stability, and security. Also, game testing increases the chances of your game’s success. But what is gameplay testing?

Bug 52

Bug Mechanics Beta Playtesting 52

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

Game Dev Unchained

JULY 5, 2023

Pham and Max delved deep into the world of indie game development, discussing everything from the inception of the game to its surprising success. He was immediately drawn to the team’s ambition to create a game that could provide the same exhilarating experiences as larger games, but with the capacity to run on low-end hardware.

Indy 103

Indy Game Development Game Developer Development 103

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

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 59

Art Concepts Dev Studios 59