Game Design Lessons

You may have heard, I am taking on students who want to learn game design. You have heard correctly.

I believe strongly that the tools which make an excellent game can be taught. While no one can become a master designer without years of work, the principles which inform good design can be taught.

UPDATE: This has been so successful, I now have an entire site dedicated to this class!  http://www.gamedesignskill.com – You can now sign up anytime through the website. Check it out!

So many students are already lining up fantastic jobs from the original version of this course and the new one should do even better

If you are interested, I am teaching an 8-class online curriculum, once more this year in August 2017.

Interested? Shoot me a message at alex@xelnath.com

Classes:

Course 1: Intro

Goal: Understand the skills you need to get the best out of this course

• Introduction:
  • My background
  • Learn about the (expensive) mistakes I made
  • Talk about how I got there
  • Connect with the audience
  • Understand the relationship between your game and these lesson

• Skills:
  • Rapid Improvement
    • How to learn
    • How to build a growth mindset
  • Put yourself in the mind of the players
    • Empathy and connection
  • Learn how to iterate on yourself

Course 2: Clarity

Goal: Be able to identify clarity issues and understand the common solutions

• What will you learn about clarity in game design?
  • Understanding
    • Why is understanding the game is so important?
    • What confuses players?
    • What catches player interest?
  • Visual Hierarchy
    • How Riot dramatically improved Summoner’s Rift 2.0
  • Challenges
    • How to handle new features
    • How to update older ones
    • What rewards you get when you have high clarity

• What skills will you learn?
  • Analysis:
    • How to spot clarity problems
  • Artistic Understanding:
    • How to weigh visual importance
    • Techniques to reduce visual noise

Course 3: Motivation

Goal: Be able to make the player care about your game mechanics

• What will you learn about motivation in game design?
  • What should players care about?
  • How will players feel good when they care about the right things?
  • When are rewards and punishment appropriate in game design?
  • What the two major types of players?
    • How do reward focused players play games?
    • How do experience focused players play games?
  • Where should the balance be between gameplay and UI?

• Skills:
  • Analysis:
    • Seeing the benefits of good clarity
  • Techniques:
    • Learn tools for rewarding the player
    • Learn techniques for punishing the player
  • Balance:
    • Understanding the importance of character strengths and weaknesses

Course 4: Response

Goal: Be able to to understand the breadth of ways players respond to a game

• What will you learn about player responses to game design?
  • What are the major categories of player response?
    • Reactive
    • Proactive
    • Emotional
  • How do game mechanics evoke these types of responses?
  • How are single player and multiplayer responses different?

• Skills:
  • Analysis:
    • Identify the difference between reactive and proactive game mechanics
    • Identify the value of emotional responses
  • Techniques:
    • Learn tools to turn a non-interactive mechanic into a reactive one
    • Learn tools to build proactive gameplay mechanics
    • Understand methods to amplify the emotional response to a situation
  • Balance:
    • Recognize the value of counter plays in PvP situations

Course 5: Satisfaction

Goal: Be able to describe the major categories and tools used to satisfy players.

• What will you learn about player satisfaction?
  • What kinds of satisfaction exist?
    • Emotional
    • Physical
    • Logical
  • Are both positive and negative experiences a part of satisfaction?
  • How do you understand where to attack satisfaction problems?

Course 6: Viscerality

Goal: Be able to understand the different aspects of a visceral experience

• What will you learn about viscerality?
  • How do controls play into a good feeling experience?
  • Has modern control design homogenized or helped players?
  • What kind of tricks do animators and designers bring to combat?

Course 7: Strategy

Goal: Be able to understand the different kinds of strategy that players want to use

• What will you learn about strategy?
  • How do you break down strategic thought?
  • What difference does timing make to strategy?
  • What genres and strategic types are strong and poor matches?
  • How can you find new genres and niches?

Course 8: Experience

Goal: Be able to understand how to create a consistent and cohesive experience

• What will you learn about a fitting experience?
  • What are the ways that consistency supports game development?
  • When are pacing changes appropriate and necessary?
  • What kind of examples of great and poor consistency exist?
  • How do you understand how players relate?