You need to make multiple games and think about what did and didn't work. Very few developers it was their first game. The early PC developers were pumping out multiple games a year.

While it won't help with real time games, Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanism, will get you thinking about game mechanics.

If you want to make social games, then read The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat http://www.fudco.com/chip/lessons.html There's also 21 years of blog posts worth reading here http://habitatchronicles.com/category/general/

Also don't signup-gate web games, players need to be able to play them instantly, without an account.

I just read a great quote about this in an Italo Calvino novel:

"If I think I must write `one` book, all the problems of how this book should be and how it should not be block me and keep me from going forward. If, on the contrary, I think that I am writing a whole library, I feel suddenly lightened: I know that whatever I write will be integrated, contradicted, balanced, amplified, buried by the hundreds of volumes that remain for me to write"

Italo Calvino was noted as being of great inspiration to Jonathan Blow (as a relative point of interest on the OP's question)

I think during one of the Braid 20th anniversary podcasts[0] he talks to it which I loved listing to (from a historic viewpoint; well moreso than a game dev/design)

[0]https://open.spotify.com/show/7t7FUL1e9vMCLWpKqcknAL?si=B_Bd...

Your gems are in the back of the stack: [shit, shit, kinda shit, sorta shit, gem], gotta keep popping the stack.

That’s a thought-provoking point. Sometimes I feel like I push myself too hard in the process of building stuff.

In this spirit of practicing and making multiple small games before a big one, I find the 20 Games Challenge[0] interesting. It's a list of known games sorted in increasing difficulty to reproduce, introducing new concepts progressively.

[0]: https://20_games_challenge.gitlab.io/

Thanks for the interesting link! I’ve got to take a look at it

Not a gamedev myself, but I think playing a bunch of board games is huge— the complexity constraints for a board game are way tougher than they are for a computer, so designers (the good ones, anyway) are really forced to consider if each new resource, token, turn phase, victory condition, etc is really pulling its weight in the final product. The mechanics have to be ruthlessly stripped back to be just what is absolutely essential to make it work. Games like Patchwork, Santorini, Azul, Carcassonne, etc are a master class in this.

A computer can be doing mountains of bookkeeping behind the scenes, and that not only obscures what is actually going on from the player, but it can make the designer believe they have "depth" when all they really have is an overcomplicated mess.

Watch YouTube channels where board games are taught, and pay attention to the structure of a video like that— it's "you play as X in setting Y, your ultimate goal is to Z, and along the way you're going have to A, B, and C to achieve that. The game will end when conditions Q are met. The hook that makes this game unique is that ____."

A video game (especially an indie game) should be able to pitched exactly as succinctly as that.

This is an approach I’ve never thought about before. Studying board games could definitely teach me how to design games in a simple and effective way. I’ll check out the board games you mentioned too, thanks!

Thanks for the good resources and comments, I’ll definitely check them out!

I don't think books and tutorials help that much. Playing and making games — a lot of games — might help you grow more as a designer than reading and watching YouTube.

1. Do master studies. Take a tiny environment or mechanic of a game you love and reproduce it for education, knowing you'll throw it away. Do this often. Get faster at it.

2. Ask people what their favourite game is. Play it. If it's fun to you, why? If it doesn't resonate with you, why?

3. Internalise the idea that ideas don't matter that much, execution is what matters. Good game designers can make otherwise boring games feel fun to play. (See "the art of screenshake" below.)

4. Make a lot of games. Make them small enough to finish. You don't have to release them all, but you should watch other people play them sometimes.

5. Don't listen to people who tell you not to watch YouTube for game design ideas, there are plenty of great videos out there that have positively changed how I think about game design:

The art of screenshake (starts a little slow, but stick with it!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdEqssNZ-U

Designing to reveal the nature of the universe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGSeLSmOALU

Game design is a search algorithm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5K0uqhxgsE

+1 for make a lot of small games you can finish. Game jams / hackathons are good for this [1][2]. The fact that OP got their demo in front of people in ~6 weeks is heartening though for that aspect, many people lock themselves away for years only to discover their efforts were ill-advised.

[1] https://itch.io/jams [2] https://ludumdare.com/

Ludumdare! Thank you, I could not remember the name of this

There's a lot of great advice in this thread. My take, after 30 years in the industry and stubbing my toe a lot:

1. Make as many small games as possible, but also mod as many games as possible and/or take existing games and tweak/twist them in a bunch of interesting ways. You'll explore some interesting design space without having to build everything from scratch.

2. Show your games off to friendly colleagues/other devs early and often. Earlier than you're ready for (because we're never quite ready!), and in person, if possible. Ask them what they'd do next, if they started with the game you just showed them. Most game devs at a physical community event want you to succeed, and are good at saying, "I'd do XYZ next." You don't have to listen to them, but if you do that enough, you'll get a good picture of how others see your work.

3. Whether you agree with them or not, be aware that GenAI is a sensitive topic for many game devs. Your Reddit post, if I'm seeing the right one, says "AI-powered browser game," which will be strongly divisive. I'd just focus on finding out what people like/dislike about gameplay, as that seems to be what you're looking for feedback on.

4. Design books are good, but I actually think they're an advanced maneuver. This is personal experience only, so take with a grain of salt, but I tend to kinda navel gaze and design-bible a project to death if I'm reading things too early in the process. So, if you've already digested Schell's book, I don't think you need to read a pile more yet.

5. Play as many games as possible, in the area of design you're interested in working. You'll see how people do stuff, you'll avoid making some obvious mistakes, and you'll get a bunch of ideas for stuff that devs aren't doing, that you could try.

Gamedev is tough but fun, and I wish you the best of luck!

I should definitely try building small things and experimenting a lot. Asking people early like I did this time with Hacker News was a great move. If I hadn’t, I might’ve gotten lost and wasted a lot of time. Also, if I just study too much, I feel like perfectionism kicks in and stops me from doing anything, so I’ll start making stuff here and there.

Lastly, I know GenAI is a sensitive topic, so I’ll need to think hard about how to explain it and approach people about it. Thanks so much for leaving a comment!

I'll second this. Start small. If you think it's small, start smaller. I think a lot of people fail in their quest to learn game development because the scope of their initial ideas are huge.

Edit, I also recommend Designing Games, by Tynan Sylvester (RimWorld creator)

When I try to build something too big, I often get overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. I’ll try starting small. Thanks for the resource recommendations too

Agree with 1 but take it further - common advice is just to clone many games. Try to build simple copies of simple games you know to understand how things are implemented and learn concepts with needed to reinvent the wheel.

Oh damn, even Ichiro lurks here!

To this day, I still replay TWEotW once every year or two :)

What game is this?

Parent post doesn’t have any links in their profile.

Ah, the game I was referring to is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_End_of_the_World

The poster is Ichiro Lambe of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dejobaan_Games

Cheers. <3

I commented on your other thread - but you should really clean up your information diet. From the vocabulary you use and the tone of your game and pitch deck, I can tell you’re someone that hangs on the words of tech industry ‘thought leaders’. You need to realize that most of the people in tech who have time to podcast, write substacks, or otherwise build a ‘personal brand’, aren’t actually making shit. They’re trying to inflate their profile so they can trade reputation for career advancement in any number of ways. It’s also not worth listening to most VCs. Most of them don’t have the time or technical ability to understand the areas they’re investing in and just chase trends. If they had the time and technical abilities, they’d be building companies instead of getting other people to do it for them. You’d be surprised to hear how many investors or personalities that are supposedly high profile are openly derided among actual founders.

The way to make something that’s fun is to try to make something that’s fun over and over again until you’ve got it down. It’s not by obsessively reading what investors or people who are essentially glorified influencers say.

I totally agree, though whatever Jesse Schell writes is great (he was my advisor!)

I'd say pick ONE SINGLE MECHANIC and MAKE IT FUN. That's it.

You can even just duplicate a mechanic that already exists: Tetris, Breakout, Balatro, Pachinko, whatever. Make it the best version you can make of that version, until it gets so perfect you're bored of it. At that point you bet you'd just "wish it had this one tweak".

Your goal is to get to that point — where you've perfected making the boring thing — that you're both excited and confident in adding that one extra tweak.

It's a really simple, technically easy process. But it's to so boring and it takes a lot of time, that's why it's hard and most people stop.

I should probably experience the best stuff out there, take it apart, and make it my own. I’m not going to stop, I’ll keep going.

I can personally vouch that this trap is extremely prevalent in Korea, mores than elsewhere, and is imo one of the top reasons the country has 0 internationally successful SaaS startups. Or actually, it has 1, but ironically it belongs to the 0.1% of companies here with a foreign founder, which says it all really.

Community leaders set the tone, and here the communities in the ecosystem are very rarely led by people who spend >50% of their time building stuff. Instead they're led by, just as you said, people who have 1. never built a successful product 2. spend >50% of their time building their brand.

I can see on OP's twitter that he's actively engaging from people in that scene as well, so really if he wants to build a successful product, step one is getting out of that scene and into one of actual makers.

While building this social network called Disquiet mentioned in the post, I got to connect with over 100,000 people in the Korean startup scene. And yeah, I’ve noticed that most of us including me end up listening more to thought leaders. The people who are actually building real things don’t seem to share as much online. It really makes sense that I need to be intentional about our “information diet”

> clean up your information diet

I'm going to try and keep this in mind now whenever I'm reading anything.

I'm going to look for a book about how to do just that, then watch a YouTube series on it, and then see if anyone has interesting blog posts so I get more unique perspectives on the matter. At that point, I'll know enough to finally clean up my information diet.

You forgot that you need to listen to some podcasts along the way.

This is the best comment. I’m far from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, so I end up mostly consuming what the thought leaders there say since it’s easier to access. There’s definitely a tendency for me to lean on that. It’s great to hear more from people who actually build stuff through Hacker News and other ways, but like you said, the real answer is probably for me to stop relying on that and just dive in myself—try things, mess up, and learn. Thanks again.

Best advice here

Do game jams! They let you practice skills and helps you learn what sticks.

Big ones like Ludum Dare will also give you feedback on the game, which is good not for improving that gamejam game you made but for learning what things are important with a first impression. You often are meant to leave feedback on other games which is another good way to learn what works and potential pitfalls.

You're welcome to try hard on your first project but project ideas often have to be really really good to stick. Another advantage of doing gamejams is it let's you make something that you can easily just walk away from

Also you can still personally take old ludumdare themes. Do them in 48 hours. And then go and see what others did. Even if you can't submit. They can still be fun mini challenges.

I’ve always just watched Game Jams and never joined, but this time I really want to give it a try. Thanks for the recommendation :)

I design board games and I think one of the most under utilized skills is studying other games. (There is old advice that says if you want to be a writer, then read more books.) Go back through all the games you like and write up what you love about them. Then, and more importantly, think a lot about HOW the game makes you feel that way or HOW the game gives you the opportunity to explore in some directed way. Then take that lens and re-evaluate the game that you made.

Every board/card game I design starts with a single key idea or mechanic or theme; but they all have a single cornerstone. Every playtest and design change is always looked at through that lens. If there isn't alignment, then you have two choices: ignore the change or considering resetting your cornerstone given what you know now. This really helps to stop thrashing and give focus to your game as you iterate.

I need to dig deeper into the games I love and study them. That’ll really sharpen my intuition, and I’ll keep working hard. Thanks for the comment :)

The Art of Game Design is a very good jumping off point; it's how i got my start, and it gives you a lot of windows to look through.

A few years after getting that book, I started to work professionally with people building games, mostly white-labelled projects or contract work, which was the studio's bread and butter. But actually working with people developed my understanding of a) the relative value that artists, designers, and animators bring to the project, relative to my own set of skills and b) how to solve the sorts of problems that ship games. I am a programmer, and I use my programmer skills to give designers and artists what they ask for.

All of that to say: the best next step is working with folks, ideally some who have had experience. Book learning will only get you so far.

That being said, here are a few more books I have seen recommended in my sphere:

- The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander (this is not about games, but design generally)

- Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse

- Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory (this is a technical book about modern game engines)

Finally, Liz England (a designer who lowkey helped me not lose hope when I was breaking into the industry) has/had a blog where she talks about game design books. I cannot personally vouch for the titles, but I trust Liz England [1]

[1] https://lizengland.com/blog/game-design-library/

Working with experienced people taught me in my first startup how fast you can learn that way. If I get the chance, I’d love to work with great people and learn from them. Thanks so much for recommending the book and Liz England’s blog. I’ll definitely check them out

I've been meaning to make the jump into joining random teams' game jams that are looking for additional people. I get nervous about it, that my skills aren't up to par, but I know it would be a great way to increase them.

I'm curious about anyone's experiences who has joined random teams in game jams and how it turned out.

Since no one mentioned it yet AFAICT I'll shout out CS50's Intro to Game Dev that uses Love2d (Lua framework): https://cs50.harvard.edu/games/2018/notes/0/

I also really like pico8 for initial dev with lots of rapid feedback. Lazy Devs Academy on YouTube has lots of good Pico8 tutorials, like this intro: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLea8cjCua_P3Sfq4XJqNV... Since pico8 source is often available you can look at it for inspiration, see for example Celeste: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2145

Along the same lines suggest the Spelunky book from Derek Yu where he walks through his whole process (and all these Boss Fight Books are great for that) going from GameMaker Studio prototype to finished product: https://bossfightbooks.com/products/spelunky-by-derek-yu

Last but not least, Itch is doing a California Fire Relief Bundle right now https://itch.io/b/2863/california-fire-relief-bundle that includes good gamedev books from Chris DeLeon. See his "Why are you making your own games? " quiz, https://form.jotform.com/233546996151162/

edit: add link to DeLeon to explain

Wow, so much info here! I’ll go through it all today and dive deeper into the fun and useful stuff. Thanks a lot!

My advice, which you might not see here, is to write about every game you play. And ideally every movie you watch and book you read, too. To develop a sense of your own taste and what makes a game good to you, you have to write your ideas down. Go through the major moments of a game and describe how they made you feel, and what they did to make you feel that way. Dissect the mechanics and identify stuff you liked and stuff that frustrated you.

This is pretty much what college is. You just write essays where you dissect stuff like that and then a professor reads them and gives feedback on your ideas and how you communicate them. You can do the same thing informally with your friends and partners, just discuss games.

Breaking down my favorite games and talking about them really helps grow my thinking. I should chat more with friends I’m building with or other gamers around me.

I've learned a lot of great general game dev info from Tynan Sylvester's book [0] (creator of Rimworld). Has good info on motivation, rewards, timing, goals, design philosophy, etc.

I have next to no game dev experience and the book is a great intro to a lot of foundational topics imo. NB: the book isn't very technical and is an easy read!

[0] Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences https://a.co/d/8Im68r8

Thanks for the great book recommendation! Since so many people suggest Tynan Sylvester’s book, I’ll make sure to read it first.

Gamedev City [0] is a new community and could be a good place for feedback and finding resources in general. As for sharing demos and collecting feedback I personally think itch.io [1] is pretty good.

As far as game improvement is concerned it's important to get in a growth mindset and keep focusing on improving the game, which it sounds like you're already doing.

Finally if you haven't already I would recommend creating a discord or some kind of forum for you game (itch.io has free hosting for them) just so you can collect feedback from people who are interested and invested in it.

[0] https://gamedev.city/

[1] https://itch.io/

I’d never heard of Gamedev.city, thanks for letting me know! I’ve already made a Discord server and a few people have joined, so I’ll try asking for feedback often while building

Not having developed a game myself, but harbouring aspirations of doing so at some point, I don't have any advice that can be backed up by experience.

However, I did find this game development series[0] by Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation fame) rather insightful, so perhaps it might help.

I've also watched a few of the videos[1] made by Timothy Cain (Fallout 1/2, Fallout New Vegas, Outer Worlds etc) where he goes into some of the underlying mechanisms of video game design.

[0]: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAbMhAYRuCUibhDtVUn3WJnHo...

[1]: https://youtube.com/@cainongames?si=PUO0Mf7WKjPRdXAP

Thanks for the YouTube link! I’ll definitely take a look

I looked at your demo video, and website.

A game is like a story or movie, or any other creative work: foremost, you need a vision; and then a way of communicating it effectively to an audience.

The design, mechanics, and marketing are just functional details - essential, of course, but pointless without that overarching vision.

Your vision should be powerful, purposeful, and exciting (to you). It's more than just an 'idea'; there should be feelings associated with it (urgency, mystery, thrills, whatever) and a sense of a consistent inner 'story'. It fuels the passion that drives you to solve a series of problems that lead to game creation.

A relevant short essay: "Drunk, and in Charge of a Bicycle" by Ray Bradbury. (And probably the rest of the essays in his book, "Zen in the Art of Writing"...)

(Note: I have a game in the iOS App Store)

I need to think harder about my vision, my intrinsic motivation, and my passion. Thanks for the important reminder

I’ll check out the essay and book you mentioned too

I’ve been a Game Engineer for 15+ years and there are many things that can help improve your toolkit. Experiment, learn new tech, and selectively copy. Experiment: make micro demos and test out features and gameplay you think of, try and find the fun. Learn new tech: new tech is popping up every day and it can give you more freedom to make what you want. Copy: if you see something in a game, movie, etc you think is cool, try and copy it and see if it fits what you’re trying to achieve.

I’d recommend YouTube channel Game Makers Toolkit to learn about game design and mechanics and Mix and Jam to learn about recreating existing features from games.

Most of all you need to make sure you pursue what you’re interested in and have fun.

It’s all about experimenting, learning, and copying, right? Staying excited about it matters a lot too. Thanks for the great comment!

I just checked out your prior submission. The title didn’t really sell what the game is, it just lists some technical features you like. Then opening the link takes you to a page with a play button, and clicking it takes you an account creation window asking for my first and last name and email. At that point I backed out because there’s no way I’m signing up for something I don’t know and can’t try.

In the early days of Minecraft it was a free dev build that ran in the browser and had no accounts, as new take on a game called Infiniminer

This is really great feedback and not even trying to sell you on a marketing book or something.

Thanks for the feedback! Improving the landing page is on my list, and like you said, I need to hurry up and add a guest mode so people can play without an account.

I think the thing that applies here is the story about the potters making one perfect pot vs. 1000 imperfect ones. In the end the ones who were going for volume were the ones who were making the more beautiful ones too.

The best way to learn is just keep hammering. Keep your eyes open, whenever you find a game that you like or even just a demo or youtube video keep that around as a reference and then just copy it. Repeat it, think how it's done and then try to improve it or adapt it to make it your game.

Also remember, as an indie developer nobody will play your games. So keep that in mind and ask yourself what is your goal when making games. If you're trying to make it big and make a living and get yourself celeb status as an indie game dev it's not going to happen. Well I mean, every once in a while there's some dev who lucks out and has the perfect combination of stumbling on a good game idea and the right channels to actually make something out of it but that's not going to be you or me or anyone else really. (it's that one lucky guy out of a million).

Of course you might want to make gemos or demos just to sell yourself as a developer candidate to go work at some other studio.

Anyway, just keep iterating and copy without shame and keep making games.

PS. Actually you should be very encouraged by getting any feedback at all. That's already 10000x more than what most indie game devs ever get. Most common feedback is 0 feedback.

The fact that most masterpieces we see come from tons of trial and error. I’ll keep that in mind. My goal is to give back the gratitude I feel for what I’ve gotten from the internet and creative things like games, movies, and novels I love. I want to make something fun and good to repay the people who’ve made my life richer. I’ll keep building and won’t give up.

Also, I didn’t expect to get this much feedback. I’m really grateful that people took the time to respond to what I made and my questions. In Korea, it’s hard to find people who give honest, solid feedback. Posting on Hacker News was definitely the right call. I’m so glad I did it.

I recommend the Godot documentation. The manual is not just a class reference, it's an entire book about best practices:

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/best_practi...

Also scroll up a little bit and do the Getting Started "Your First 2D Game" tutorial.

Join the discord(s) and learn by chatting with other game devs.

Thanks for the link! I’ll read it for sure

The inimitable https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html, which is a great read for any programmer, not just game devs.

Thanks for the link, I’ll check this one out too

This blog is a gold mine. I have had this article (and others) in my bookmarks for 10years maybe:

https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/#map-storage

https://www.redblobgames.com

Thanks for the blog, I'm going to read all of them

Gamedev is sweatshop for a single person because it requires not only the programming but also art, game design, music and all should work together. The key thing here is keeping high resource and motivation. In gamedev the can evaporate easily and they can appear suddenly. Don't expect any feedback in early years. It takes time.

Since game development takes a lot of time, wouldn’t it be good to get feedback along the way? If I do it all by myself, I might lose my direction. Of course, apart from that, I still need to work hard on it for a long time

You are trying to bypass years of experience. It doesn't work that way.

Go read Blake Snyder' "Save the cat". And all the derivative works. And keep rereading them until things start clicking.

The entire ecosystem of "Save the cat" is about being a writer of sorts: movies, novels, theater plays etc. But it describes a very important point: every piece of creative work has a pattern. There are patterns on how to report news, there are patterns on how to write a movie, there are patterns on how to write a novel.

Therefore, there are patterns on making good video games. So go build the knowledge to write your own "Save the cat" for video games.

I’ll think about the essence of different creative works and get more experience with game development. I shouldn’t forget that making something great takes a lot of effort and time

If your focus is programming, work with someone who is good at design. Don't expect to just be able to read some books and independently pull off interesting and innovative game design that will be commerically successful, unless you are very serious about diving deep and learning, to the same extent you would study art hard enough to call yourself a professional artist. Game design isn't some optional nice skill to have when making an independent game, it is literally all that matters. Coding is an important and useful skill, so find someone who feels confident about their design and implement their ideas together.

It’d be awesome to find a great designer to work with. Until then, maybe I should study design a bit myself and make some progress—that might help me convince a good designer to join me. Thanks for the helpful advice!

Two things:

1) DOOM was Romero's 100th game. As others said, make a lot of small games, iterate, learn.

2) "Game Thinking" by Amy Jo Kim helped me to focus my target audience and make decisions during development that benefit them.

That’s an inspiring comment. I really should make lots of small things over and over. I’ll also check out that “Game Thinking” resource, thanks!

Godot game engine has been good to me, I have not made any original games but I have copied some games with a high skill ceiling, it is very important to have a high skill ceiling because otherwise it feels aimless, games like Advance Wars or Mega Man Battle Network have high skill ceilings but are not too difficult to create in 2D tile systems, as soon as you get into scaling the game with more units, more power ups, etc. then it starts to really feel like it has an aim to become stronger not just a cool thing to look at for 5 minutes

Games like Mario, Pokemon, etc. succeed because they have large teams of people making a large world, most individual game devs try to re-make these games and are very overwhelmed trying to create large worlds that hundreds of people worked on together

Since so many people are talking about Godot, I’ll take a look at it. Thanks a lot for the comment! Also, I know it’s hard for a small group to build a big world, but I don’t think it’s impossible. I’m going to give it a shot

Hey, congrats! Spent a good chunk of time fiddling with indie games… as some others have mentioned Jesse Schell is cool, also Ralph Koster. I know you’re looking for communities/resources, been there! But the best thing to do, is make games repeatedly. Apologies in advance for the length, but this is a part of my life I genuinely wish I could reset and retry w/ hindsight bc it feels so obvious now!

I found trying to make demos of individual mechanics pretty critical. Like any design process: high volume, low(er) fidelity until you find a meaningful direction (best case: lots of play testing from folks who are not the creators)

Even really abstract approaches for balancing XP a character, or moving on screen in a unique/tricky way can be useful to look for a signal of enjoyability (which option do folks want to replay, which do they seem less interested in… and why?)

I often try to think about the “play” part (pure delight/fun) vs the “game” part (winning conditions, confounding advantages, etc) separately

Last, I enjoyed talking to people (including myself) and trying to dissect WHY they like the games they like. There are genres and typologies that can be interesting creative inspiration (a game with a sudden-death condition mixed with the thrill of a race)

Try to make COMPLETE demos (beginning, advancement, winning conditions) and also honestly concept art (tell the visual story, we eat w our eyes first)

And just have fun! Man I am jealous, no time for games these days :/

Thinking of “play” and “game” as separate things feels really interesting and worth digging into. People enjoy different things, right? So figuring out those key points could be super important for making a good game. I need to talk to the gamers around me a lot more.

It’s too bad you don’t have time to play games these days haha. You should try making an indie game again someday! It’s never too late—when you feel like it, just jump in :)

I think the most useful feedback would be that you should probably put some time into studying what a game actually is.

It might be that what you are trying to make actually isn't a game, but more of a sandbox, or a platform, or a space for people to hang out. That can work too, e.g. the website MaidMarian had a "game" that was just a bunch of people flying around talking to each other. There was nothing to do, but it was cool and it was fun (at least until the novelty wore off).

(There's also singleplayer sandboxes, but the multiplayer ones are ironically easier to make good, because in Jason Rohrer's words, a human being is an infinite novelty generator.)

Based on your post, that seems to be the case here! You seem to be making "spaces". So that can totally work. You might study previous examples of such games that are not really games but "spaces".

At any rate, it seems that at this point you're mostly just experimenting and trying things out. You are having trouble communicating the vision because there is no vision, or you're trying to find out what the vision is / discover what's cool / what works. That's fine too! You don't need to feel bad about that.

But when you present it as a game, there are certain expectations about what that means, e.g. it's expected that a game has a "point", and here there does not seem to be one.

I'm not sure if there's a better word for what you're making than a game, but that might be worth investigating if using different language here would be helpful for presenting the ideas.

You’re right. Sometimes I’m not even sure if what I want to make is really a “game.” Games have rules and goals, but what I’m building doesn’t have those yet. So is it just a space for people to hang out, like a portal? Or maybe a 3D social network? Or something like Garry’s Mod, a sandbox for creativity?

I need to figure out the best way to share my vision and make something people will keep using and enjoy. That’s going to take a lot of thinking, trying, and messing up. Your comment really got me thinking. I’ll keep digging into it. Thanks!

> But I’m clueless. don’t know design or mechanics

> Any books, videos, or communities that helped you grasp design or make fun mechanics?

Why do you want to make games? People who do generally have a lot of ideas they want to explore around design and mechanics.

That doesn’t mean all your ideas have to be good, or you start out good. But you’re asking the wrong questions.

Someone who is interested in game design should be able to make a fun game in PowerPoint,

I want my game to create a fun space on the internet for people. I grew up inspired by the internet and other people’s creations. You’re saying that if I’m into games, I should already be exploring them and asking deeper questions, right? Before games, I started with simple web services, so learning game dev feels like going from -1 to 0. I wanted to ask others about the best sources of inspiration first, hoping it’d help me avoid unnecessary mistakes.

Others have said it here in the comments but I'll emphasize the point:

when you throw a "signup to proceed" page at people, I am guessing almost everyone closes the page - it is such a huge turnoff to be told to sign up.

Signup is something you should ask people to do at the latest possible time, after they are already interested in and using your game/application/system.

When someone goes to your page they have granted you the most precious thing on the web - their time.

You have literally seconds to get them so engaged that they grant you a little more time.

That loop goes on and on.

Drop people straight into the game experience - not into a page talking about the game or the company or something else.

If you have made an experience instantly engaging and then led the player to become more and more engaged then later you will have built enough relationship - and motivation - to ask them to sign up.

In summary - your signup page throws away all the work you have done by placing a brick wall in front of potential users/players who have expressed and interest.

Remove it, drop people straight into the fun.

Thanks for the great comment! I’ll work on making something people can play right away. I’ll add a guest mode so they can enjoy it without logging in, then sign up to save if they want. I want to make the experience way more user-friendly. Thanks again!

1. Never test a game in large public venues. You’re just asking to get annihilated. Find five experienced gamers that love to alpha test and provide high quality feedback. Iterate this process until all five are excited about the game. Then test with 20 more. Iterate again. When you have something 100 testers like/live, you’re ready for Reddit.

Learn to read code, deconstruct cool ideas in other games. Plenty of open source code to scour.

Mechanics are often systemic, so think like that. Instead of thinking about one off scenes, think how you can make foundational mechanics that you can build a story from.

Story: try making some story games in Twine or Inform just to learn how to engage the player through strict storytelling. This maps to your use of a base mechanics system.

You should love your own ideas more than anyone else, so only seek validation from yourself.

You’re right, I think I posted too soon. But thanks to that, I learned it wasn’t the best move and found a few people who care about what I’m making. I’ll keep working with them, sharing feedback, and building it better. Thanks for the good comment!

If you'd like to get out of the weeds, "The Beauty of Games" by Frank Lantz (of Universal Paperclips fame) is a thought-provoking read. The basic premise is that games are the aesthetic experience of systems and reason, cause and effect. If dancing is your body's way to explore music, games are your brain's way to explore logic. A little academic, but pretty interesting!

The other thing I want to say is that game feedback should be taken with more than a grain of salt. The worst feedback I've ever received was on a handmade, physical roll-and-write that I gave someone for free. Gamer culture is strongly opinionated and quick to hyperbole... but not always right.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I’ll definitely read it! And yeah, I don’t have to take everyone’s feedback. It’s up to me to decide what to use. Thanks!

I don't know anything about game dev, but just a bit of support on the feedback:

> feedback was tough: No clear goal, felt aimless. -

There are plenty of successful games that fit this description. There are plenty of unsuccessful ones as well. I would encourage you to lean in to the type of game you want to make. If the game is suppose to be an escape, does it bring that feeling? If the game is suppose to be fun, is it actually fun to play?

Most things just take time to learn. You probably won't get any worse at game design as time progresses, so you are doing the right things and the suggestions in this thread should help you on the path you are already on.

Thanks for the great comment! I’m realizing how important it is to get clear on what I want to make and define what “fun” means to me.

If you need some inspiration, check out levelsio's explorations knowing nothing about game dev and creating a multiplayer flight simulator with Cursor. He's been working on it over the past week and has made great progress. He has several tweets describing the process.

https://fly.pieter.com

https://x.com/levelsio

https://x.com/levelsio/status/1895540281488880095

I’ve seen levelsio’s posts too. I’m using AI tools like Cursor to build my game right now, and it’s pretty exciting.

It may be too FPS specific, but I always got a lot out of the in-game audio commentaries on Valve's games (HL2: Episodes, (since 2024) HL2 itself, Portal 2 etc.) There is some great analysis of player psychology in the recordings that I think would be universal across games.

As a game developer myself (hobbyist), I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Games are hard, but they're worth the effort!

(And also for what it's worth, my first forays into game development was met with lots of critical comments (some helpful, some not). It's part of the process, but don't let it discourage you!)

Your encouraging comment means a lot, thanks! I never thought about listening to Valve’s game audio commentary, but I’ll check it out for sure.

I'm the developer of a boxing game called Leather, that I've had in the Play Store and App Store for about 6 or 7 years now.

As I'm working towards a Steam release I've been digesting a lot of this guy's advice - https://howtomarketagame.com/

Whilst much of his guidance is of course marketing rather than design related, he does write about genres and game mechanics that attract players - specifically on desktop rather than mobile. It's worth a few hours of your time to check his stuff out.

Gonna check it out, always down to learn more about what draws players in. Appreciate it :)

Agreed. I spent a year going down the wrong path before finding this resource, but it saved me from going four more years down the wrong path.

I'm not a game dev, but I watch Tim Cain's[1] YouTube channel, and I think it's a treasure trove of experience-based stories and advice.

https://www.youtube.com/@CainOnGames

[1]: Tim Cain created the original Fallout (pretty much designed the whole universe), and a number of other successful games after. He's an engineer through and through, but wore a lot of different hats, and has an interesting perspective on all aspects of game dev.

I’ll watch Tim Cain’s YouTube, thanks for sharing :)

Resources which helped me get started:

"Challenges for Games Designers" by Brathwaite & Schreiber. This was by far the most helpful, as it laid out a process of finding & refining fun game ideas.

"Game Feel" by Swink. Examines why jumping feels better in Super Mario than Donkey Kong, why Street Fighter feels the way it does, etc. This way of breaking down & examining mechanics was eye opening and can be applied to other kinds of games.

lostgarden.com, especially https://lostgarden.com/2008/12/06/post-it-note-design-docs/, which describes a process for rapidly iterating on ideas, and https://lostgarden.com/2006/10/24/what-are-game-mechanics/, which introduced me to some of the fundamental building blocks of game mechanics.

Resources which helped me later:

I found "Art of Game Design" to be helpful later, when working on making a good game into a great game. The different lenses were great for finding areas where I could improve a game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg really drove home how important polish is. This was useful after I had a game which was already a bit fun.

Finally, an observation & a suggestion, if you're open to them: You admit that you don't know game design, yet you're attempting to innovate by removing limits. This seems like an enormous challenge for a beginner, like someone who doesn't know how to play an instrument attempting to make a new style of jazz.

I think you'd have more success if you learned to play the instrument first: Practice by making a lot of small games. Spend 2-4 days on each, no more. Learn to use prototypes to explore the design space, searching for ideas with a glimmer of fun. When you find one, iterate on it to see if you can refine it into something more fun. As your game design skills improve, your ability to innovate will improve too.

Thanks for recommending those awesome resources, also especially the last two paragraphs. They really helped me see what I should do next.

I really like what Pirate Software does. He runs Game Jams (https://itch.io/jam/pirate) which are a great way to build small things as a way to learn. There's also a very active Discord community: https://discord.com/invite/piratesoftware

I hadn’t seen that Discord before, thanks for letting me know!

Experimentation.

I have heard that LÖVE is a great engine for prototyping game mechanics. You know; have some colored circles and some boxes and see if your game mechanics pan out (if you're doing artwork then you're doing prototyping all wrong). Hand your prototype out to friends and family and see what they think.

Starting with the graphics, sound, etc. feels rewarding but ends up being a really slow way to fail. Your game should be fun without the polish.

I agree that it’s gotta be fun even without polish. I’ll experiment a lot to make the mechanics solid and enjoyable. Thanks for the comment!

Here’s two:

Jordan Mechner’s 20 tips: https://www.jordanmechner.com/downloads/library/20tips.pdf

Liz England’s blog: https://lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/

Thanks for sharing the link, I’ll definitely read it

You should talk to people in person for feedback and have a conversation about it. Anonymous posts in messageboards are not an effective way to get feedback.

On rereading this didn't come back like I intended. IMO this post is fine. What I'd caution against is reading too much into the targeted feedback from reddit/etc about your game. Studying like you're doing is great, but nothing would beat actually sitting down and talking to someone in person who has played a lot of games and picking their brain. You say the "feedback was tough", which makes me think that you didn't expect it. If you sit down with someone and have a conversation about the game, I think you'll find that you can empathize with their feedback and understand it better. Instead of just feeling criticized, you'll realize that the things about the game they don't like, you also don't like, and be able to make it better. Basically I think that empathetic human-to-human feedback is a lot easier to process and learn from compared to anonymous feedback from disinterested strangers.

I get what you mean. Right now, I can only get feedback through anonymous posts like this, but I’d love to talk to gamers in person as soon as I can. I half-expected some of this feedback, but I was surprised and later grateful by how much people gave (including your comment). Thanks :-)

What I found helpful:

1. The book "Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences" by Tynan Sylvester the creator of Rimworld.

2. Jonas Tyroller has some great videos on Game Design like this one: https://youtu.be/o5K0uqhxgsE

3. Some game marketing content from Chris Zukowski is also very helpful.

Thanks for suggesting those resources, I’ll check them all out.

Most of the subreddits for gamedev aren't well suited for self-promotion. I think https://www.reddit.com/r/playmygame/ is probably the most welcoming for "hey I built something - let me know what you think"

Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll post on that subreddit sometimes and ask for feedback.

I'm not a game dev, but I might suggest that for some supplementary learning, you could try to build and tweak the recently released source code for the Command and Conquer series. Could then learn how some things are made and try to replicate them conceptually in another language or platform.

I’ll take a look at Command and Conquer, thanks!!

I'd love to make games I have so many game ideas but realistically for me it could only be approached as hobby/art - the chances of making a living from it are vanishingly small.

Which sadly means I'll never do it because developing a game would be incredibly time consuming.

Masahiro Sakurai, creator/director of hit game series "Kirby" and "Super Smash Brothers", has an excellent YouTube series.

https://www.youtube.com/@sora_sakurai_en

Oh, I like Kirby, but I didn’t know about this YouTube series. Thanks for telling me!

I wouldn't hung up on the feedback too much. I also think minecraft has no clear goal and feels aimless and yet it's one of the most popular games in the world. If the game is fun for you, there will be a niche with the same taste for sure.

Thanks for the comment! Taking feedback is my choice, and making something I find fun feels really important too

Amazing post. I'm also pointlessly building a gambling game called Space Plinko lol. Wanna team up ? Check it out! https://moonplinko.vercel.app/

If you have not done so yet, build or mod a level in a game that comes with the editor the devs used to broaden your understanding of level design which is what the player is up against - to play beat enjoy the level.

Playing with game mods seems like a solid experience. I’ve made some mods/games in Minecraft and Roblox before. Doing it a few more times to learn sounds good, thanks for the reminder!

I looked at Space Zero and got a "sign up" link. I then closed my browser tab. Sorry, I won't register to find out what this is.

> Disquiet, a social network for software builders

Just as a side note, I love that name for a social media platform.

Thanks! Disquiet was a startup in Korea, it gets about 120,000 software/startup folks visiting monthly

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

As others have mentioned, game jams really are your best friend here, though where I see a lot of people make a mistake is thinking that game jams must be an organised event, when in reality you can do your own at any time. You miss some of the fun and feedback of a proper jam, but it's certainly better than restricting yourself to doing it a few times a year (when your schedule and theirs happens to align).

As for resources, unfortunately game design isn't as much of a "studied" field (for lack of a better word) as something like software dev. There's some great YouTube videos and blog entries and even a few good books, but its such a situationally dependant field that you'll need to know how to at least apply your own spin on whatever is recommended to fit your own projects, hence why, for me, game jams are king.

A few other tips I've picked up other the years: 1. Playing games helps, but if you're playing familiar games, you're not going to get much new out of them. You need to go underground, far beyond the safety of the front page of steam (or steam all together). PICO-8 and its splore browser is great for this (incidentally, PICO-8 is also great for game jams too!)

2. Similar to the above, different experiences help you generate different ideas. This can be found through your work by trying new technologies, new ways of doing things, playing with different genres you wouldn't otherwise touch, but also in your personal life, doing things you wouldn't ordinarily do. Just like the above, if you don't change the input you shouldn't expect much of a change in output.

3. Have a little notebook on your desk and anything that pops into your head, write it down, even if it seems absurd. A lot of my breakthroughs haven't come all at once, but rather picking out the best bits from a lot of ideas that otherwise couldn't have stood on their own. In my view, a physical notebook is much better than using your phone or notion or whatever, but I don't really have any solid reason to back that up so idk, ymmv.

4. Not much to say on this one, but keep it simple. It's far better to spend your time making a solid, if simple, base game, than endlessly tacking on features and content to a core that isn't working.

5. Also not gonna say much on this one, because it's a rule I don't follow to my own, very much self-aware, detriment; you need to be disposable with your ideas and plans. Maybe Space Zero just isn't a fun idea, take what you've learnt, drop it and move onto the next project. To be fair, that one can be a double edged sword. New devs do this far too easily, not letting themselves ever finish anything, which is obviously no better.

Just saw on the other thread that you're using AI for asset production, maybe code as well though you didn't mention that. I know it takes longer, but I'd highly recommend, even say it's essential, to learn how to do this yourself rather than relying on AI. Just like with programming, knowing how to do something isn't just about knowing how to produce the end result, in fact more so in teaches you what the end result should be.

All that's assuming that AI is up to your job in the first place, which I'd argue it is not.

Trying things I wouldn’t usually enjoy to get more diverse experiences and inputs sounds really valuable. Thanks for taking the time to give me all this advice :)

Play lots of games! Especially ones you may not typically enjoy.

Extremely informative on what not to do. He never prototyped his game to see if the mechanics would actually be fun, rewrote it in a more tedious way every time he got bored, and then stopped working on it and took everyone's money to go vacation around the world for a few years. Randy is perhaps the worst game dev role model I can think of.

With comment from 63, I’ve got to check it out. Seeing someone else’s dev process is such a cool thing.

If low level find someone find apprentice under and or Find a job in the industry.

If on with higher level stuff (using an engine) use youtube.

I am doing the self teaching thing for low level with a web and CS background and it is brutal. I am currently on a one month break because one of the challenges I faced was too much.

There are discord channels I join to discuss, ask questions and learn.

I rely heavily on youtube but yeah sometimes it’s a lot. Gamdev is insane.

If you’re just using an engine just focus on shipping small games and start from there.

Even if it means copying a tutorial and changing one little bit.

Mostly a link dump.

Mini Games for Ideas on game mechanics

- https://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/

- https://abagames.github.io/action-mini-game-mechanic-tags/in...

Gameboy Development on restricted hardware (make something fun without a huge focus on graphics)

- https://gbdev.io/

- https://hh.gbdev.io/

Developers in the South Korea area if you're trying to find people to mentor / intern with.

- https://www.gamedevmap.com/index.php?country=South%20Korea&s...

Dwarf Fortress to make you feel like you accomplish nothing and other people are so productive its ridiculous (mild sarcasm, DF has lots of neat simulationist ideas, and "Toady" is ¯¯\_@©_/¯¯ organized. The dev map is crazy to look at. Like, it makes you feel vaguely insane.)

- https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

- https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html

People trying to figure out what a "fun" game even means in terms of Live Action RolePlaying (mileage may vary on applicability to Space Zero and digital games)

- https://analoggamestudies.org/2014/10/o-jogo-do-bicho-pushin...

- https://petterkarlsson.se/2013/03/19/the-monitor-celestra-ba...

Games in terms actual militaries on Earth and the insights for modern day conflicts (that often get ignored by superiors)

- https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/how-does-the-next-great-po...

Technical stuff if you want "graphical resolution"

- https://learnopengl.com/Introduction

- https://www.learnopengles.com/android-lesson-one-getting-sta...

- https://webglfundamentals.org/

- https://webgl2fundamentals.org/

Shadertoy, gaze upon the abyss of shader development and 100,000 shaders (iq's stuff is absurd what's accomplished in a shader)

- https://www.shadertoy.com/results?sort=newest

- https://www.shadertoy.com/user/iq

Inigo Quilez - MATH ... who wrote Shadertoy

- https://iquilezles.org/articles/

Scryfall, 30,000 Magic the Gathering cards, and 30 years of game design mechanic development

- https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=%28game%3Ap...

SteamDB, to look at the 800 games that get release "every, single, week" and how few get "any" signups.

- https://steamdb.info/upcoming/?lastweek&sort=peak_desc

These are amazing links, I’ll open them all and dig in. Thanks!

Handmade Hero.

Great for game tech, but not much about game design.