Tutorials for a better understanding of game design

There are plenty of tutorials out there dealing with the technical aspects of game development such as writing code or creating and using assets. Yet, most projects fail or are never completed.

I want to address this issue by explicitly focussing on the often overlooked “ground work”, i.e. core concepts of game design. This includes detailed analyses of existing games – including different aspects of psychology, (theoretical) game design and game theory. If you don’t know the difference, you are welcome to stay and learn ).

These basic concepts broaden the view of game designers to see more things they can change or adjust to improve their game.


I’m starting off with the very fundamentals: What makes a game a game?
This video is mostly intended for new game designers. However, I’m quite certain also veterans can take away some food for thought. That’s at least what happened to me when I first read about these “obvious” things that I never really gave a second thought to:

 

We continue with a deep dive into the combat system of Octopath Traveler: We explore the game's most important mechanic, the Weakness system - and how it affects other systems. With the addition of the character system, boost points, and turn order planning, this combat system provides players with meaningful choices and engaging gameplay.

 

This is actually very interesting to me, for me one way to define game - design is by looking at other ways to arrive at something either dynamic, or at least interactive stuff . . .

1. story - design
2. game - design
3. setting - design
4. art // style - design
5. trope-to-quality - design

If one looks at all these, it's clear that some titles start from a story, perhaps for other projects it starts from mechanics, or the so - called ' core ' loop, not sure, certain titles start more from a setting, for instance if a small studio gets an order to make something in Dungeons & Dragons, say ' Dragonlance ', or other known settings, not sure a few titles simply start from raw design, or some cool - art, if that makes sense, an artist makes something either iconic, or interesting, then that is the start of an entire series, or even house - hold franchise name, a weird example in this category is actually Star Wars, that is clearly inspired by the well - known art of ' Valerian and Laureline ', ie. Star Wars was based on a particular design, or less - known european comic - books, etc etc . . .

These days the word ' trope ', or recurring-stuff is also a legit way of making a video - game, however it's sometimes seen as ' cheap ', or a creative short - cut that belittles, or even takes away from what making art even is, usually either opinion expressed over various media, self - expression, or original // creative work . . .

There are no ' rules ', and one can't really say if something is bad, or not, it's more over how ideas are made into content, or perhaps where those ideas start, for some people starting at mechanics, or what one could call the ' game - design ' is a way to arrive at either important, or also career - quality stuff, anyway it's an interesting discussion, not also ' how ' people make content, or various media, more also the ' why ', or also over ' what purpose ', or goal, these are perhaps bit meta - questions, however it's important to know there are several ways of figuring a game, or electronic // interactive content, and that perhaps ' game - design ' has a place in that debate, or perhaps also for various people conflict, or confusion over how to make anything . . .