22 replies to this topic

[Frostblade]

Game Design Links

This topic is intended to be a library of websites that are useful, helpful or interesting for game designers. Feel free to suggest any websites that you think might be appropriate, from blogs to single articles to full game-design communities. Please note that, since we hope to emphasise quality over quantity, only particularly useful suggestions will be incorporated into this first post.

A few things to consider before making your suggestion:

• Game design is by no means specific to Game Maker, or even video games. If you find a particularly interesting article on, say, the design ethic of Connect Four, don't be reluctant to suggest it.
• Any content should be easily accessible. If the website requires payment or a login, their audience is going to be severely restricted.
• You're welcome to suggest your own websites, but be sure that they have significant design content first. A blog with a single post, or with only a vague focus on design, is unlikely to be appropriate.

Websites:

Three Hundred

• URL: http://www.squidi.net/three/index.php
• Description: An (unfortunately lapsed) attempt to develop 300 unique and original game ideas in 300 days. The author has some excellent ideas, and tends to describe and discuss his design process in great detail.

TVTropes: Video Games

• URL: http://tvtropes.org/...VideogameTropes
• Description: A wiki-style attempt to catalogue, dissect and explain every video game trope- that is, any pattern that tends to crop up a lot, like Bonus Bosses and Save Points. The website as a whole is also useful for storyline writers, and a reliably excellent source of inspiration.

Blogs:

YoYoGames Glog: Game Design section

• URL: http://glog.yoyogames.com/?cat=6
• Description: Mark Overmars' personal insights into game design. While he hasn't posted in a while, the points he makes are still very relevant.

[1Sunkist64]

Why was this thread just started two days ago? Isn't this forum old.

[Frostblade]

We actually did have an older list of links, but it kind of collapsed under its own weight- there are dozens of links to sift through, quite a few of them of them are dead, and the quality is more than a little hit-and-miss. I thought a fresh start with stricter quality restrictions would be more sensible than trying to fix something so thoroughly broken.

Some day soon, I'll be diving into the old list to find (and transfer) any links that are still useful.

[RobertOK]

Two that are rather general, but can be interesting to browse are GameDev: http://www.gamedev.n...p?categoryid=23 and Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra...ategory/design/

[Nocturne]

I hope everyone else finds these as good and useful as I have!!!

DonJon RPG Tools

• URL: http://donjon.bin.sh/
• Description: An interesting site as it contains a set of world builder tools, a dungeon generator (VERY good! Different sizes, shapes and styles...) and a series of name generators for various things...

The Seventh Sanctum

• URL: http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
• Description: For me this is one of the best ideas sights in the web... it specialises in random generation techniques and can give you character names, equipment, plots, stories etc... The perfect place for when you have writers block or are fed up using the same old time honoured RPG or sci-fi enemies or names...

Edited by Mark13673, 02 January 2010 - 04:22 PM.

[Tumetsu]

Lost Garden
A blog from professional game designer. The blog includes dozens of very useful articles for game designer, though it involves often more advanced topics.

Arctic Flower
My old blog which includes several game design articles under Game design category. I intend to keep the site available though I probably won't update it anymore.

[GStick]

Sirlin.net

I love this site. David Sirlin has a book entitled "Playing to Win", which is a really insightful book. His website is almost entirely dedicated to game design topics. Mostly he focuses on fighting games, but a majority of what he says can easily be applied to other types of games. He has some really deep concepts on this site. He held a position as lead designer for Super Street Fighter II HD Remix.

Edited by GStick, 07 February 2010 - 10:13 PM.

[methegamemakingguy]

It's a very, very bad idea to link to TV Tropes without clear warning, y'know.

[yofreak69]

Here are some name generators if you're stuck for game name, character name, character profile, weapon name, spell name, etc etc..

Fantasy Game Name Generator

RPG Game Name Generator

Fake Profile Generator

Sci-Fi Name Generator

Character Name Generator

Another Name Generator

Weapon Name Generator

Numerous Generators

[Poeman]

I assume posting here is fine because it is a sticky?

Anyways HERE is a great website for level designing tips.

[111Studio]

Great, short video clips talking about game design:

http://www.escapistm...w/extra-credits

[Super Guy]

Extra credits rocks!

My Own: www.gamedesignersunite.blogspot.com

A wiki that I found yesterday that is almost pageless: http://computergamed...ame_Design_Wiki

[NinjaCatStudios]

It's a very, very bad idea to link to TV Tropes without clear warning, y'know.

Why would that be?

I find that watching "The Mailbox" by TotalBiscuit can give me some good Ideas and stuff about the Games Indistry.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut#p/c/2272A4EE84269E1F
You might need to delve in a bit to find them, but not much.

[Traslogan]

http://www.wix.com/j...evelopment-blog

Recently Starting up small team of young game designers.
Only 1 game in-progress and nothing but a couple of FOG's made atm, but worth noting.

[Yal]

Why would that be?

Because it's very, very, very, very easy to keep surfing the site for hours without noticing that time goes. Have a go and you'll see. TVTropes is a very great source of inspiration, and you just want to keep reading.

[TylerBetable]

Hey, I'm not sure if game monetization ideas, tactics & tips falls under "Game Design", so if it doesn't, forgive me. That said, I think integrating game monetization into your game is an important part of building a successful game, and should be thought of in the planning stage instead of tacked on later.

I work really hard to write a blog that is a good Game Monetization resource. Let me know if you like it

Betable's Game Monetization Blog

[fyaopo]

Extra Credits has moved to Penny Arcade, so I think I should repost the link here. There are a lot of interesting things on game design that they discuss on the show, and I recommend watching all of them.

http://penny-arcade....w/extra-credits

Also, the Revrant series:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=wH1wXRvhSNA

Just follow the links and you'll have them all.

[HayManMarc]

Every game should start with a Game Design Document (GDD). Especially if it is being developed by a team. This has proven invaluable to me and created high organization and clear goals for my team and project.

The Baldwin Game Design Document Template

[Mack151]

Massive post spoiler’d due to massively massive massiveness.

Spoiler

Dang, a lot of good ones have already been suggested! I can attest to Extra Credits; not only does that show have a lot of good design advice, but it gives plenty of insight into the inner workings of the game industry, talking about stuff like recent trends among developers and the roles of the different members in a development team. TV Tropes is awesome too, but like everyone says, it can be a huge time sink if you're not careful.

Every game should start with a Game Design Document (GDD). Especially if it is being developed by a team. This has proven invaluable to me and created high organization and clear goals for my team and project.
The Baldwin Game Design Document Template

THIS FELLOW SPEAKS THE TRUTH. One cannot emphasize enough just how helpful a good, thorough GDD can be both for teams AND one-man projects -- they make organizing your ideas, working out design flaws and keeping the general style, story, and thematic direction of your game consistent soooo much easier. Trust me, you may think you have it all figured out and don’t need to write some three- to fifty-page-long document detailing every little bit of your project, but the more ambitious and complex the game is, the easier it is to get caught up in some huge oversight or plot hole down the road without adequate planning, and then you'll end up wasting a lot of time trying to untangle that knot.

So yeah, since writing good GDDs is so important, here's some stuff to add to the reference pool:

400 Project
A compilation of approximately 400 rules for writing GDDs. (you'll need to highlight the text to read that one because of white text on a white background.)

Vancouver Game Design: "Writing Better Design Documents"
Same deal, a general overview on how to write an effective GDD. It's based on a presentation made by one Damion Schubert, but the link provided in the article is dead. Found it here (direct link).

Pag on Games: "How to Write A Game Design Doc"
What a GDD is, what it isn't, the general format and common elements in each document.

Sample Outline for a Game Design
Pretty self-explanatory, the author describes it as "maybe more of a 'checklist'". At the bottom are links to tons of example documents. And then links to other collections of examples...

Zack Hiwiller: "Game Design Documents"
Addresses some common misconceptions about GDDs and takes you through the process step-by-step.


And just so this post isn't all just building upon other people’s stuff:

RPGMaker.net
A community centered around developing RPGs. They have a fair amount of design/writing articles and forum topics to read through, with the topics ranging from world-building and character design to mapping and enemy encounters.

I could list more, but I’ve been writing and rewriting this monster all day. Stupid perfectionism...

Edited by Mack151, 23 January 2012 - 04:20 AM.

[Lamberterin]

I love this sites.David Sirlin is a book called "Playing to Win", which is a very insightful book. His site is almost entirely focused on the game design. He focuses on the most fighting games, but most of what he says, easily applied to other games. He has a very profound concepts on this site. He held position as a leading designer for Super Street Fighter II HD Remix... Best of luck..