Where do the best gamedesigners hang out?

Since @Murgilod recently called the creative side of our wonderful community "hot garbage", I started looking around a bit for other places that have more gamedesign focussed discussions. I looked at tigsource again, but their design forum seems even more dead than ours. But then I found https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/ and so far this is looking pretty good to me.

I mainly wanted to share the recommendation to use the search function on that subreddit and see if you find something interesting on a topic you haven't found much on so far. For me this was the only place where I could find some thoughts on 2D side-view perspective for tactics games (not a good idea apparently because you just can't adequately replace the complexity of spatial relations in a top-down/isometric perspective without bending the rules so far that it's effectively the same - e.g. by giving everyone jetpacks or similar). But if you have other good recommendations, I'm all ears!


P.S.: Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe turn based, zero-g, tactical combat on a space station could work, where shooting a gun propels you in the opposite direction and floating enemies have an element of partial movement predictability to them...

 

TBH I think they are busy making games, not chatting on internet/social media. Reason is because I don't think there is too much that can be figured out from theorizing, just have to get the hands dirty.

I also think a large part of non-professional community is people who think games is a get rich quick scheme. Maybe there is some genuine interest in games as a medium but without the professional work ethic anything they have to say is just procrastinating.

Probably just have to find a group of people with shared interest and form your own community. Setup a few guidelines to keep discussion focused, and keep membership controlled.

The feedback friday is a really good thing but not enough people putting serious effort into it. It could be fantastic resource but I guess not enough people dont see the value.

 

It seems to me that it’s very difficult to find real professionals and their schedule is planned for years to come Hardly cool game designers are looking for work and live on forums (although I would really like to). It is worth looking for some private groups and chats, asking those who have been in the industry for a long time. As a rule, the names of professionals always know everything. And such gurus can advise their students. Also a good option. And it is with them that you can create a community.

 

Reddit doesn't seem well suited to in-depth discussions with things like nesting and down-voting hiding comments (and up-voting promoting comments).

I don't think Murgilod called our game design section "hot garbage" as much as just dead.

 

I don't like reddit either, but I do like a surprisingly large percentage of the content that I read on that subreddit, so I thought I'd share the link here.

True, if I misrepresented her quote, it was not intentional. Here is the original:

In terms of gamedesign discussions, I'm often not finding here what I'm looking for.

Thanks, that sounds about right.

I definitely don't want to start my own community, no way!

I guess I'm looking for places that are somewhere on the spectrum between here and the elite invite-only industry-veteran hangouts. I'm quite liking that subreddit so far. I'll see how it goes once I post there, maybe that place is all I'm looking for, maybe it's not. Either way, if anyone has any more good recommendations, I think those could benefit a lot of people here.

 

I definitely agree it'd be nice to see a version of this place with more activity.

 

Sadly, I do think it's the case that design discussion has moved away from forums in general. For the most part, I think it's fragmented into various discord servers, which are a great medium for realtime discussion but terrible for information that needs to persist for more than a few minutes. We've always struggled to hit a critical mass here that could sustain ongoing dialogue.

 

I think there just aren't that many people in the current generation that do anything other than work, get high on legalized weed and drugs and endlessly scroll through social media. I'm not going to pretend like spending time on forums is the most fruitful expenditure of your time, but at the very least it is a form of communication where people proof read their writing and take time to compose their thoughts. Kids come through here looking for the "make a game" button and occasionally ask a question, but then they seem to forget they ever posted here.

Look at successful indie developers. Dedicated, small circles of friends (if any) and rather private lives. Spend all their time making their respective titles. Interactions with public are generally limited and rather scripted (except for interviews). Imagine having a successful game and becoming D grade internet famous... and then people find your forum posts. Maybe it's just not a good time to be a public figure. Maybe it's just not a good time to be outside your house.

 

i learned everything I know about Unity and design between here and youTube.

I am surprised this forum is not very active relatively speaking as I understand a ton of games are made using Unity.

I found some good Reddit topics too,..but many are outdated/in active too.
And if you are looking for something more specific, like a genre, it gets even more sparse.

with all the posts in the Works In Progress thread, they should be here posting, especially in the Friday Feedback,..lol.

 

A while ago I tried to start a group where we deeply analyze games, I posted here and on reddit/gamedesign, quite a few people joined, but when it came to sit down and do the work...crickets... so I just started to do it myself and kinda gave up on forums. If you want high quality input you can watch GDC talks etc. and contact the speakers directly. I was surprised that even some big names in the industry replied to a total noname like me.
I still read around reddit and here, and watch some of the channels like game makers toolkit etc, but I see it more as entertainment with a few nuggets of useful information here and there.

 

What do you mean when you say "do the work"? Are you referring to something other than discussion?

 

What is a "best game designer" anyway? I'd think the few lucky ones would be crazy busy creating and living the dream having figured out how it all works but I don't think anyone considers themselves as the best...

 

The idea was to use the book "The art of Game Design" and go through all the lenses for a chosen game, upload it to a spreadsheet to compare and discuss. But no one bothered to actually write anything down.

 

I think what happens is game design is just an interest, like a hobby to analyze and discuss games. Some have no intention of making games, while others want to do it but don't know how. Ultimately it's just a desire for community that draws some in.

 

If I would ask ten people to design a simple tree in blender or photoshop and make a character jump over it I would get 10 different trees, 10 different characters, 10 different jump animations (some in 2D and some in 3D space with different camera angels) 10 different kind of background music scores, sfx and particles. Some would blend from walk to run and maybe there is one with a double jump. We have not talked about the plattform, the controlls (keyboard, mouse .. or the background of where the tree grows but ultimately: what is really the best and most likable "tree-jump" from an artistic point of view and what feels very best for the player? What players are we taking about? Whats their age? Where do they come from? Is that even important when it comes to such a simple task?

I read the book (The art of Game Design) twice and many more literature about GD including yt GDC, I tried to find answers on reddit (pain in the ass) but except a few useful hints and very good explained case studies I didn't learn many so called "general rules to make a good game". In fact I did not learn even one except some explanations why highscores and why competition is important (in a metaphorical sense). Because as the autor Jesse Schell for instance mentioned himself in the very beginning of the book "you should have basic skills (at least basic skills) in animation, anthology, architecture, business, cinematography, storytelling, communication, history, basic probability mathematics, music, psychology, sound design, technical writing, visual art and management to keep everything in balance. GD in my opinion is at one point (when you make a game one step ahead of Tetris, Doodle Jump and Flappy Bird) pure art with a strong technical background and talking about tastes, emotions, expectations, dreams and invoking experiences people had in their lives every game desiner has it's distinctive path and approach he follows.

It's almost philosophy and at one point you start to lose yourself in endless discussions about individual tastes without ever reaching a "true" or a "false".

There are good artists and there are bad artists out there and that's a calming fact in my opinion.
sorry if my post did not fit into this discussion here but I just had the urge to write this

 

I see what you're saying and I do think that your post fit into the discussion.
There's definitely difference between good and bad design. At the same time, there's not one best design solution for everything. That's why I think, even if a game design discussion doesn't always reach a conclusion, the discussion could lead to new interesting designs and a learning moment for the participants.

 

I agree, deconstructing a game is certainly worth it. Of course there are individual tastes that you can't account for, but a lot of things just work the same for most people. A good scary movie is scary to just about every person.

 

From this point of view I would gladly join the discussion. Besides the fact that I haven't found "the rules of thumb to make a good game" (maybe I was just too naive to believe something like this even exists) I found at least some pearls of inspiration from other game mechanics, design, storytelling because of deconstructing and analyzing. Maybe that's what a broader discussion indeed could benefit from as well as @Shack_Man mentioned before.

 

There's some really good content on Twitter to be found with the hashtag #leveldesign
The stuff from @the_Norberg & @notimetoulose I especially find really interesting.