Articles
- I Have No Words I Must Design by Greg Costikyan [pdf]
- Don’t Be A Vidiot by Greg Costikyan
Audio / Video
- Games for Change Closing Address by Raph Koster
- Gaming Can Make a Better World by Jane McGonigal
- Lessons from Game Design by Will Wright
- Gaming Can Make a Better World by Jane McGonigal
- Immersive Design byRaph Koster [mp3]
- The Core of Fun by Raph Koster
- Conflicts in Game Design by Jonathan Blow
- Games and the Human Condition by Jonathan Blow
- MIGS 2007 Design Reboot by Jonathan Blow *
“The rules of a game are the meaning of life for a game.”
“What does it mean to create meaningful or interesting game play and how can I find that game play? Part of the problem is that I think we have assumptions about what it means to design a game that are a little bit incorrect. I think that we have this presumption of architecture right now. What I mean by that is we start with a plan and we go top down. And our process of game development is about imposing our will on the art assets and code. You know, and often our plans were ambitious and two-thirds of the way through the process we can’t get it done and we have to cut features and it’s all painful and stuff. But this is the way that we do things. But through my past couple of projects I’ve become acutely aware of a different way of doing this which is “exploring.” You can be adaptive and unheirarchical. You can start out with a cool idea but then just start developing it and see where it goes. And adapt and accept it and find the best thing that’s there. This is related to what I was saying earlier about using games as a method of exploring the universe. You can develop a really good game by exploring the ramifications of a concept… “ - Little Metal Dog Episode 23 interview with Richard Garfield
- Achievements Considered Harmful by Chris Hecker
- Please Finish Your Gameby Chris Hecker”So, essentially I do agree that it would be preferable if
people did try to explore their game ideas to the full
extent they deserve to be explored. But I think very few
game developers are able to do this. Braid and Portal are
the only two titles that comes to mind when I try to think
of games that do or come close to doing this…” - Video Games and the Human Conditionby Jonathan BlowWith about 20 minutes left Blow describes the game design as exploration process
Blogs
Books
- A Theory of Fun for Game Design
by Raph Koster
- The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses
by Jesse Schell
- Chris Crawford on Game Design
by Chris Crawford
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology
by Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman
- Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
by Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman
- Real-World Flash Game Development: How to Follow Best Practices AND Keep Your Sanity
by Christopher Griffith
Inspiration
- Paper Cuts by Anastassia Elias
- But Seriously, No Seriously by Clarke Curtis
- Braid by Jonathan Blow
- Portal by Valve
- Limbo by Playdead
- More more inspirations, see the blog category Inspiration