How To Think Like A Game Designer

Comments · 781

• HE

  @heissenbadger · 3 years ago

  Gamedesigner here, I usually just steal from the office kitchen actually

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• LA

  @Laurender · 3 years ago

  Here in Finland our game dev teachers used the word 'parastaa', a portmanteau of our words for steal and make better.

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• BE

  @Ben-ej1wl · 3 years ago

  Always a pleasure to watch your videos! You've got a really good video structure: Present a concrete example of a problem, abstract it and explain a general solution, then come back to your original example to show the solution in action. It's a great way to teach and I don't get tired of it.

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• IN

  @InkAndSatin · 3 years ago

  Small quibble with something: you say that things like story, music, and graphic design can all create aesthetic experiences in the player, “just without the dynamics bit.” The thing is, those things can all ABSOLUTELY influence and alter player behaviour, sometimes radically. <br><br>The first thing that comes to mind is Portal. They had a level full of box puzzles that required you to use a crate to block lasers and weigh down buttons. But, play testers kept forgetting the crate, putting it down, leaving it behind, and having to backtrack to retrieve it when they realized they needed it again. <br><br>So what did the devs do? They put a heart on the crate, renamed it, and gave Glados new narration. The Weighted Companion Cube was born. <br><br>And now players were interacting with the box the way the developers intended, refusing to let their new friend out of their sight. Nothing was changed about the puzzles or the way the box worked to make this change happen. It was all dialogue and graphic design. <br><br>And there’s lots of ways story, music, and imagery can change the way players interact with a game. Would spooky music make them slow down and be cautious? How do they treat enemies with different character designs? Sometimes aesthetic leads to dynamic and not the other way around. And if you’re using this MDA model, your music, artwork, and narrative all count as “mechanics” too.

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• GA

  @garynapper664 · 3 years ago

  Great video, very well structured and presented. Honoured to be the main example here. The team worked so hard on that game and I am glad to see that it is still referenced today. Keep up the amazing work. Educational and inspiring.

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• RH

  @Rhyno012345 · 3 years ago

  I love these “psychology of games” type videos. This is such an easy framework to think about how players interact with games.

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• IA

  @IAmBael · 3 years ago

  Mark&apos;s voice always makes me happy. The exciting game dev stuff is just a bonus.

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• AN

  @antoniopadilha2476 · 3 years ago

  The way Matt Colville puts it: Identify the fantasy -&gt; find the behaviors that reinforce that fantasy -&gt; design mechanics that encourage those behaviors.

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• GU

  @GunnGuardian · 3 years ago

  I would argue that Video game&apos;s core distinction as an art form is this process. The games that get praised as &quot;art&quot; usually have the story, art direction and various mechanics all working towards one key emotion in a unique way.

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• LO

  @loreleiloriestone9179 · 3 years ago (edited)

  I love the way pokemon mystery dungeon red rescue team does saving. <br><br>You can only save at the end of a dungeon crawl, so you spend your time in each dungeon juggling resources, deciding whether or not to engage in combat, and even weighing the risk and reward of leaving with the &apos;mon you just rescued, or staying in the dungeon to complete more missions and collect more resources.<br><br>But, since it&apos;s a Gameboy game, and you might need to turn it off at any time, it has a quicksave feature. You could save at any point, get booted back to the menu, and when you opened the file again, the quicksave would be deleted.<br><br>So, you can&apos;t save scum, but you aren&apos;t forced to keep playing through a dungeon if you have something else you need to do. If I ever make a game long enough to need saves, I&apos;ll heavily consider stealing that one.

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• CH

  @ChaosTheSalamander · 3 years ago

  this actually kind of changed my view on game making. Thinking deeper into what i want my players to feel, and then designing mechanics to compliment those feelings

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• AR

  @ArtofWEZ · 3 years ago

  I actually found hi-fi rush to be genius as someone who has no rhythm, everything ends up on rhythm if you like it or not if you want to play it like a normal action game, and even the running between areas rewards you for learning the beat since dashes can be linked. By end you feel like a rock star.

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