Game Design
Game design is the discipline within game development that takes care of planning the game and making it fun. It defines the mechanics and how they interact with each other while also specifying all the needed information for the other areas of game development.
Mechanics are the game’s rules. The way mechanics are constructed and combined is one of the factors that determine whether the game is good or not.
Games have been a widely used media for telling stories. While a game doesn’t need a story to be a game, the experience can be enhanced by having a story. Out of the four Bartle personalities of gamers, at least two of them will generally enjoy having stories in games: Socializers and Explorers.
There are many different ways of telling a story. The way which the story is told will depend on what the designer wants for the game. There are narratives that can be read simply through blocks of text. Other narratives can be simply experienced by the player through the levels, sound and art of the game.
Here’s a list of resources for game design:
- Sloperama has a FAQ that can help many aspiring game designers get in the correct path for becoming a successful designer.
- Gamasutra has a Design section.
- Game Career Guide has a lot of information about game designing, the industry and education.
- Designer’s Notebook is a list of articles written by Ernest Adams.
- Make Games is Derek Yu’s (creator of Spelunky) blog.
- BoingBoing has a Games section with news about gaming in general.
- Raph Koster is known for his book The Theory of Fun.
- Book of Hook Game Design and Development is a wiki with a few articles about game design and programming.
- Untold Entertainment’s Blog was founded by Ryan Henson Creighton, author of the Unity 3D Game Development by Example Beginner’s Guide. The company’s objective is to create fun experiences for all audiencies.
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun is a blog about PC games.
- Designer Notes is Soren Johnson’s blog. He has worked on games such as Civilization 3, Spore and Dragon Age Legends. He generally posts about game design and programming. There’s also interviews in the website.
- How to Not Suck at Game Design is Anjin Anhut’s blog about game design and art.
- Black Golem is a company founded by Thomas Schwarzl. The blog is mostly just about game design.
- Lost Garden is Daniel Cook’s blog. He is the founder of Spry Fox. The blog is mostly about game design but there’s also posts about other topics of game development and the industry.
- Positech Games’ Blog – Founded by Cliff Harris, the blog discusses many subjects of the game industry.
- Super Meat Boy Blog has a section on Game Design.
- GameDev has a Game Design section.
- Chris Hecker is a programmer who has worked for EA but has gone indie.
- Teaching Game Design is Ian Schreiber’s blog. Topics discussed are mostly about game design and education.
- Game Design section on the Wolfire blog.
- Game Design Concepts is an online game design course with 20 levels. Click here to start the first level.
- OneSwitch is a blog about gaming for disabled people and game accessibility.
- What Games Are is a blog created by Tadhg Kelly about game design, publishing, marketing and production.
- Develop is a website with news about the games industry.
- #AltDevBlogADay is a blog where a group of developers post.
- 8 Bit Horse is a website about 2D games.
- Significant Bits talks about games from a developer’s stand point.
- Pixeltao is a blog focused mostly on old school games.
- Racketboy is a website about retro gaming and consoles.
- Joost’s Dev Blog
Know of a game design resources that isn’t in our list? Please send us a message!
