Game Design
Ongoing coverage on Game Design.
Latest coverage
Preserving the Past With Charles Cecil
Revolution Software co-founder Charles Cecil discusses the upcoming 4K remake of Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars and the challenges of designing point-and-click adventure games. He shares insights on balancing puzzle difficulty, player-driven narratives, and his personal desire to correct a long-standing visual inconsistency in the original game's artwork.
Book Excerpt: Learning Video Game Design on the Tabletop
This book excerpt explains how skills learned from designing tabletop games can be applied to video game design. It is presented in a step-by-step format to help readers understand the transferable design principles.
Snapping Your Career into Place with Ben Brode
Ben Brode, chief development officer at Second Dinner, discusses the challenges of designing Marvel Snap to be both accessible and expandable for long-term live service. He highlights the iterative process of defining core game mechanics and the studio's use of the Godot engine for efficient over-the-air updates.
'Consume Me' Wins Grand Prize, Nuovo Award at the 2025 IGF Awards
The indie game 'Consume Me' by Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, and Ken "coda" Snyder won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and the Nuovo Award at the 2025 Independent Games Festival. The festival, held at the Game Developers Conference, also awarded prizes for Excellence in Visual Art, Audio, Design, Narrative, Best Student Game, Audience Award, and the alt.ctrl.gdc Award to various other independent titles.
Slideshow: Check out Keita Takahashi's storyboards for 'to a T'
Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy and Wattam, has released his new whimsical game, 'to a T'. The game follows a teenager stuck in a permanent T-pose navigating daily life with various characters. Takahashi shared early storyboards from the game's development, offering a glimpse into his creative process and vision for the project.
What Makes Ambrosia Sky So Unique?
Ambrosia Sky, a unique cosmic science fiction game from Soft Rains, was a standout at Summer Game Fest 2025. The game involves players cleaning alien mold and burying the dead to uncover mysteries of a lost colony. Studio head Joel Burgess and narrative director Kaitlin Tremblay discussed the game's origins and the team's ambition to push sci-fi boundaries.
Revisiting The Door Problem With Liz England
System Era Softworks design director Liz England discusses her evolution from writing about the 'Door Problem' to focusing on how game design leadership can help developers effectively build games. She reflects on her perspective shift over the past 11 years and the importance of effective leadership in solving design challenges.
What is the Game Developer Podcast? | GameDeveloper.com
The GameDeveloper.com podcast features interviews with prominent figures in the video game industry, discussing game development, design challenges, and labor relations. Hosted by Bryant Francis, the bi-weekly show includes past conversations with developers like Liz England, Sarah Elmaleh, and Charles Cecil, covering topics from game preservation to marketing.
Digging into the combat design of Cronos: The New Dawn
Bloober Team's new survival horror game, Cronos: The New Dawn, features innovative combat mechanics, including the removal of a dodge button and enemies that evolve by hunting corpses. Lead combat designer Shamil Yanbukhtin and senior game AI programmer Dennis Pauly discussed these design choices on the Game Developer Podcast.
Are these the 100 most influential games of all time?
Kitfox Games CEO Tanya Short discusses a list of the 100 most influential video games of all time, compiled by professional game designers. The list, assembled through the Polaris game design retreat, aims to serve as a tool for designers to improve their craft and create influential games.
Not So Massively: Blizzard’s reckless experimentation on StarCraft II and Heroes of the Storm
The article criticizes Blizzard Entertainment's recent balance patches for StarCraft II and Heroes of the Storm, suggesting reckless experimentation with minimal testing and communication. The author argues that these drastic changes, particularly to core mechanics, are detrimental to the games and their communities, drawing parallels between the two titles under Blizzard's classic games team.
Crossfire Is Being Built by One of Gaming’s Best Design Duos
Crossfire is a new military shooter that warrants attention due to its directorial team. The game is being helmed by the designers responsible for the Modern Warfare reboot and notable set pieces in the Uncharted series.
Warframe of Mind: Duviri is a great idea that I hate
This article analyzes the player experience within Warframe's The Duviri Paradox, finding that while the concept is imaginative, the Drifter's combat mechanics are fundamentally flawed and detract from the overall enjoyment. The author suggests potential improvements to combat and customization to better align with the core Warframe experience, ultimately concluding that despite its interesting ideas, Duviri is more frustrating than fun.
Obsidian veteran Josh Sawyer thinks RPG choices are best when they're not "purely" good or evil, and Greek plays "knocked it out of the park 1000s of years ago"
Obsidian Entertainment design director Josh Sawyer believes that the most compelling choices in role-playing games are those that avoid a strict good versus evil binary, drawing inspiration from ancient Greek tragedies. He argues that such morally ambiguous decisions force players to confront their own values and are more thought-provoking than purely black-and-white options. Sawyer highlights games like Pentiment as examples of this design philosophy, noting a trend in modern RPGs like The Witcher 3 and Baldur's Gate 3 to move away from simplistic morality systems.
Silver Palace Gameplay PV Shows Female Protagonist and Dichotomy Beta Details
Elementa has released a new gameplay trailer for Silver Palace, showcasing the female protagonist and details about the upcoming 'Dichotomy' Beta Test, for which sign-ups are open until July 16. The trailer highlights investigation mechanics, mini-games, and combat, while also teasing new threats. The game, built in Unreal Engine 5, will feature a Victorian-inspired setting and will be playable at various events in 2026.
What Dune: Awakening brings to PlayStation 5 Sept 22
Dune: Awakening, an open-world survival game set on Arrakis, is launching on PlayStation 5 on September 22. The game, already available on PC, will feature a new single-player mode and optimizations for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro, including 60fps performance modes. Physical editions will be released in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North and South America, and Japan.
Working as a Team: The Principle of Partnership
This article discusses how many game franchises are defined by a single protagonist, citing examples like Master Chief from Halo and Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. It contrasts this with Sony's approach of designing platforming mascots to undertake adventures as a team.
Quiz – Naken och sårbar
This article presents a quiz focused on survival games, where players are challenged to test their knowledge of titles that emphasize starting with nothing and building from scratch. It highlights games where players are cast into hostile environments, requiring patience, planning, and desperation to survive.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead doesn't "care" if his next game isn't as popular as Sandfall's GOTY RPG, because "we're just going to do what we love again"
Guillaume Broche, director of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, stated that Sandfall Interactive's next game may not achieve the same level of popularity as their previous award-winning RPG, but this is not a concern for the studio. Broche emphasized that the team prioritizes creating games they love, believing this approach contributed to their past success. He also mentioned that the studio is prepared to make bold decisions for future projects, even if they are not universally liked, to maintain creative integrity and avoid development pressure.
New details for Attack on Titan 3 have been released
Developer Omega Force and publisher Koei Tecmo have revealed new details for Attack on Titan 3, launching this winter on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The game will feature character creation, Exterior Scouting Missions beyond the walls, and a new casual mode. The opening animation, produced by MAPPA, will be added post-launch.
