A game design blog for people building ambitious PC games

Featured post

How a Super Smash Bros. Fighter is Designed

Super Smash Bros. fighters work because each one has a clear theme, sharp tradeoffs, readable animation, and enough faithfulness to honor the character without breaking the roster.

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Editor picks

What Makes Good AI?

What Makes a Good Puzzle?

How Stealth Game Guards See and Hear - School of Stealth Part 1

The Challenge of Cameras

How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves

How to Keep Players Engaged (Without Being Evil)

The Games That Designed Themselves

How Level Design Can Tell a Story

Why Does Celeste Feel So Good to Play?

What Makes a Good Detective Game?

What Makes a Game Feel Mysterious?

How Games Use Feedback Loops

How Games Do Health

The World Design of Hollow Knight | Boss Keys

Can We Make Talking as Much Fun as Shooting?

Controllers Control Everything

Clockwork Games and Time Loops

How Game Designers Solved These 11 Problems

What Makes Celeste's Assist Mode Special

How to find amazing game ideas

Three things that inspired me to finish my game

Sequence Breaking with Toki Tori 2

Did I Complete My 30 Day Game Making Challenge?

Was Steam Next Fest Worth It?

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword's Dungeon Design

Playing Your Super Mario Maker Levels

This Psychological Trick Makes Rewards Backfire

3 Lessons from a Real-time, Turn-based Game

Secrets of Game Feel and Juice

How I got my demo ready for Steam Next Fest

Don't make this assumption about your players (Developing 10)

Nintendo - Putting Play First

How Jonathan Blow Designs a Puzzle

A puzzle game where your tools are completely random

The World Design of Banjo-Kazooie

The Music of Breath of the Wild

The Tragedy of Halo 3: ODST

The Power of Video Game HUDs

How to Make an Indie Game Trailer

Making Games Better for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Players

How Snake Pass Became a Platformer Without Jumping

What Comes Next After Analyzing Games

Making Hitman 2's Best Level

What Made Psychonauts Special

Hitman and the Art of Repetition

Why You Probably Didn't Get Lost in Metroid Dread

What It's Like to Release a Game on Steam

The Power of Invisible Choices

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's Dungeon Design

Morality in the Mechanics

Redesigning Death

The Secret of Mario's Jump (and other Versatile Verbs)

The Rise of the Systemic Game

How Baba Is You Makes Brain Busting Puzzles

Shovel Knight's Signature Moves

Why Metro Exodus is so Immersive

What's the Point of Prototyping?

How The Forgotten City Creates The Perfect Mystery

How AM2R and Samus Returns remade Metroid 2

What Makes a Good Combat System?

The Genius AI Behind The Sims

Blue Prince: Can a random puzzle game actually work?

The Best Games from the 2021 Game Jam

Valve's Secret Weapon

The World Design of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

The Design of Dead Space - Part 2

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening's Dungeon Design

Why We Remember Bioshock's Fort Frolic

The Genius of Prey's Gloo Cannon

How I Make Puzzles for My Indie Magnet Game

Is Until Dawn a Good Horror Movie?

Ico, and Design by Subtraction

Adaptive Soundtracks in Games

The One Thing You Need to Finish Your Game

Why Capcom is the King of Remakes

How Event[0]'s AI Puzzle Assistant Works

Commanding Shepard

A detective demo inspired by Geoguessr

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' Dungeon Design

Finding the Fun in FPS Campaigns

Are Lives Outdated Game Design?

How Overcooked's Kitchens Force You to Communicate

5 Bits of Good Game Design from 2015

How Rockstar fit an entire city into PlayStation 2 memory

10 Game Design Lessons from 10 Years of Analysis

Is The Swindle the First Great Heist Game?

Why do God of War's Characters Keep Spoiling Puzzles?

How Nintendo Solved Zelda's Open World Problem

Super Mario 3D World's 4 Step Level Design

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks' Dungeon Design

Does Spidey's Web-Swinging Make You Feel Like Spider-Man?

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker's Dungeon Design

The Final Steps Before Releasing a Game on Steam

The Two Types of Randomness in Game Design

Analyzing Mario to Master Super Mario Maker

Can Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom's UI Be Fixed?

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds' Dungeon Design

Breaking Down the Best World in Rayman Legends

The Design of Dead Space - Part 3

Point and Click Puzzle Design

Why is it so hard to make game design decisions? (Developing 3)

How Her Story Turns Video Clips into Clues

The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II's Dungeon Design

How to make a good platforming character (Developing 6)

How Cuphead's Bosses (Try to) Kill You

The Birth of the Japanese RPG

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Seasons' Dungeon Design

Following the Little Dotted Line

Roguelikes, Persistency, and Progression

The World Design of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

What Mirror's Edge Catalyst Should Have Learned From Burnout Paradise

Making Ori and The Will of the Wisps' Best Level

Super Mario's Invisible Difficulty Settings

Playing Past Your Mistakes

The Best Games from the 2024 Game Jam

How Jusant Makes Rock-Climbing More Immersive

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's Dungeon Design

Can we Improve Tutorials for Complex Games?

The 100 Games That Taught Me Game Design

How To Combine Video Game Genres

Downwell's Dual Purpose Design

The 3 Types of Detective Game

The 4 "P"s of DOOM's Amazing Combat

The stuff no one tells you about game development (Developing 7)

Depth, Mastery, and Vanquish

How Accessible Were 2021's Games?

How To Think Like A Game Designer

What's The Point Of Hard Games, Anyway?