Tag game design
In this interview, we discuss the difference between UX and GD, what it means to be a designer in the video game industry, and what it means to design for real players.
What if we were to look at the design of the oldest board game in the world with our modern eyes: would the design still hold strong? What could it teach us? Join me in a dive through the History of games and the secrets of the Royal Game of Ur.
How do we create and implement AI intelligence? What is the best approach? What are the important steps to follow? In this article I give you my personal approach and tools for you to achieve state of the art enemies.
What makes an enemy feel smart and believable? In this article we detail clear, actionable ways to bring our AI to the next level without breaking the bank!
Games are known to be very directive, sometimes to an extreme. But even if a game was truly giving freedom to players, would they embrace it?
Skinner Boxes, Carrot and Stick, Bartle’s Taxonomy of Players, Self-Determination Theory, Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivations… In this article, we dig into the finesse of behavioral psychology applied to games, with one focus in mind: Player’s Motivation, and how it is the key to player engagement and retention.
If you are trying to land a job as a game designer, this article will definitely help you: it goes over the biggest mistakes I have noticed in candidates as a game design recruiter in AAA companies for the past 10 years and how to avoid them.
Making an efficient trailer, a powerful demo, or creating engaging first contact is a pretty difficult thing to do.
In this article we discuss the players’ first contact with a game and what are the 6 essential elements they need to understand as fast as possible for an efficient onboarding.
How to design card games User Interface? What makes the UI/UX of the best games so efficient? What can we learn from them?
In this Stream and article, we dig into the world of card battlers and redesign live the UI of Fairtravel Battle, one of the games we follow on GDKeys!
When game designers decide to cheat too. Let’s dive into the world of hidden mechanics and rules-bending to understand how to play with our players and ultimately give them the best experience they could get!
The first article on a series dedicated to combat design, dissecting what an attack is and identifying what creates rewarding, fair, and engaging fights.
The One-Pager I am using for years every time I am starting the design of a new enemy. I give you the template files, as well as all the details you need to know in order to build unique, meaningful enemies.
In this “Keys to” article, we dig into the components and theory of a good Skill Tree. Analyzing the trees themselves but also the skills they contain, and opening on uncharted design opportunities.
A very rational approach to enemy design: we will talk about player abilities, challenging specific skills, player behaviors and diversity. This article will lay down the different possibilities and questions you need to ask yourself to start a new enemy design confidently.
In this article, I give you one of my personal tools to develop, create and iterate on a solid Signs & Feedback system. I give you the base template as well as my step-by-step methodology to make it your own.
In this game Dive-in, we are going to dissect the unique selling point of Weaving Tides, talking about 3Cs, design priorities, adding player friction, gameplay mastery and design by absence.
In this article, I give you my thought process while designing or reviewing a game’s UI: the questions I want to answer myself, the big categories of UI and why using one instead of the other, the tests I perform to challenge it, etc. At the end of this article, you will have a base of theory as well as your first keys to design and challenge your games’ UI!