Tag: beginner-friendly

Back to basics part 1: End-states & Wincons

Hi, and welcome to the beginning of a(nother) new series of articles. As the title suggests, this one’s going to focus on the absolute basics of game design, and is meant to be both a good starting point for beginners, as well as a generally useful review of some of the more key concepts in…
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Levels of Testing

Testing your games is important. I’ve said that in a lot of different ways and context with my articles thus far. With interactive systems, the only time you can get useful metrics and input is when you actually go and interact with them. This time, we’ll take a bit of a deeper dive into testing,…
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Resource-related Rambling

Last article I talked about MOPED. This article, I won’t talk about MOPED. Instead, working on one of my games got me thinking about a subject I’ve found a bit lacking in categorization in the past. And, it often feels like categorization is something game designers enjoy doing more than actually designing games. Theory is…
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A Complex Conundrum

Welcome back to our little slice of the Internet. By now, we’ve covered the bare basics of what design is, the core things you need to start working on a game, and which issues you should try to avoid during the process. Now I want to tackle a subject that is useful to both beginners…
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Sidequest: Harsh Truths

Howdy! Welcome to another Sidequest, where we have another topic, but the same kind of semi-coherent ranting, raving, and rambling, courtesy of yours truly. So, I wrote this article thing regarding beginner mistakes, but the original idea was to write about the harsh truths of game design. Y’know, the shit no one tells noobs because…
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The Trials of Error (2/2)

Pictured: 4 versions of the same card from one of my games, none of which was final.A whole lot of valuable lessons learned, though.(Disclaimer: Art’s not mine and is just used for prototype purposes) To continue directly where we left off from Part 1, we resume the list of common beginner mistakes in no particular…
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The Trials of Error (1/2)

Pictured: Cards from 4 prototypes of the same game, all of which were scrapped eventually.A whole lot of valuable lessons learned, though. mAking mistkaes Where we last left off (So, you want to make a game…), we discussed the core aspects of design as a process and some simple steps one can follow in order…
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So, you want to make a game…

A brave new world Welcome to game design! Whether you’re completely new to the craft, or an already-experienced designer/developer, it never hurts to take a look at the basics and see things from a new perspective. In this post, I will attempt to shed some light on the process of starting a new game, as…
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