ゲームデザイン
エピソード10：ゲームデザイン
担当するパートが何であれ、ゲームのためのアートを作る人はゲームの開発者です。開発者が持つべきマインドセットとして、プレイヤーのために最良の素材を提供するためにも、全てのメンバーがゲームデザインの基礎的な部分を理解しておくべきでしょう。アートとゲームデザインは一体となって成立するべきものですし、そうでなければプレイヤーを混乱させたり、クオリティが低いと思われてしまうでしょう。
この動画では、現役ゲームデザイナーたちが「面白さ」とは何か？明確な目標や優れた敵を作るには？といったゲームデザインの基本について解説していきます。また、ゲームデザイン上の判断が（たとえアートが一切なくても）ゲームのテーマや雰囲気に影響を与えられることや、アートとゲームデザインが調和していることの重要性などについても触れます。この動画を見ていただくことで、アートを通じてゲームデザインを支える手法（およびその逆）について思いを馳せるきっかけになれば幸いです。あるいは、ゲームデザインに興味を持って何かを作り始めることになるかもしれませんね！
素晴らしい！最後まで見て頂きありがとうございます！このシリーズを楽しんで頂けたら、そしてあなたが何かを作るためのインスピレーションになれたら嬉しいです。皆さんの成果を見られるのを楽しみにしています！
Additional Game Design Resources
Books:
Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games by Tracy Fullerton
Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. Not actually about game design, but discusses user-focused problem-solving.
The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell. It discusses lots of different ways to analyze games and review your own work. They even have a twitter that cycles through the lenses reminding you to use different approaches in your designs!
Podcasts:
Mark Rosewater’s Drive to Work: By the lead designer of Magic The Gathering. (Brian Feeney recommends the "Color Talk" episodes in particular, e.g. "Green Speaks," "Blue Speaks.")
Game Design Roundtable: More focused on board games than video games but it’s a good deep dive into many topics and they often go into the practical realities of game development such as production times, costs, and how to market and have your game turn a profit as well as design specific topics. Episode 93 features our very own principal game designer Ananda Gupta!
Retronauts: A podcast focused on game history, discussion, and analysis. There is a lot to learn about why games are the way they are and what problems they were trying to solve at the time.
Video Series:
Mark Brown’s Game Maker’s Toolkit
Deep dives specific game design topics. His boss keys series in particular is an awesome breakdown of every. single. zelda. dungeon!!! Also has a great new miniseries on designing for disabilities.
Matt Colville's Running the Game
This is a series about running Dungeons and Dragons games, but at its core D&D is designing experiences for players! Dungeons and Dragons is a great place to get started in game design because you get immediate feedback from your players and the barrier to entry is next to nothing. No coding required!
The GDC Free Vault:
Lots of game design and development videos that are available for free!!!!!
And More!:
We consulted with game designer Stone Librande on this video! He’s been designing and teaching for many years, and has given some great talks at GDC himself!
His talk on the game framework featured in the video
Brian Feeney’s Games List!
Unique PVP Games:
Atlas Reactor: A turn-based simultaneous team action PVP game. Players all have to choose their action and watch them resolve.
Chivalry: A medieval warfare FPS with medieval combat done right
Surviv.io: I love this game and have played over 1500 rounds. It’s the best battle royale game on the market and it’s completely free and can be played on any browser. The game pacing, clarity, accessibility, and environment design are all fantastic.
Games for Polish & Feel:
Assault Android Cactus: Twin stick shooter with really tight controls, well designed levels and just feels great.
FTL: Faster Than Light: Rogue-like starship fighting game. Amazing core ship combat. It’s very accessible and has tons of emergent gameplay and great content design.
Furi: Boss fighter with an amazing theme and feel. This is a must-play for audio designers
Crypt of the Necrodancer: A 'turnbased' rogue-like that makes you take turns on the beat. Everything is really well integrated and you can even play on a dance pad!
Systems Design:
Path of Exile: Can be hard to get into, but is a deep and well designed ARPG, is easily hundreds of hours deep and has great gameplay systems that link together very well.
Dreamquest: Mobile / PC - Tiny dungeon crawl with deck-building mechanics. This game is made for game designers.
Slay the Spire: A more modern version of the dreamquest formula, a unique theme and a great ascension system.
Setting & Immersion:
Stardew Valley: Revitalized the Farming genre that had been slowly dying over the last decade.
Monster Hunter World: The polished Monster Hunter experience that is finally accessible to non-hardcore fans.
Thea the Awakening: A slavic lore civilization-style game. It has some mechanical issues, but feels really fresh and full of discovery.
Prey (2017): Really phenomenal execution on all axes. Best in class level design, monster design etc. Be sure to get the one from 2017 not the older Prey.