Here’s a quick 5-step exercise to boost your game design skills…

As a game designer, you’ll need to understand games from both a psychological and a technical standpoint.

Follow these steps:

1. What are your some of your favorite games of all time? Make a list of 10 games. Some of my personal favorites are Diablo, Castle of the Winds, and Nuclear Throne.

2. Conversely, what are some of your least favorite? Make a second list of 10 more games.

3. Take 15 minutes and pick the top three games from the first list. Think about what makes them good games and what makes you want to play these same games years down the road.

4. Do the same with the second list. Did you become disinterested in the game too soon due to in inappropriate reward system? Were you put off by the cheesy dialogue, uncohesive plot, and utterly broken controls?

5. Figure out the patterns. Identify what works well, and what doesn’t in the games that you’ve played. There’s a lot to be learned from studying the work of others.

Keep these patterns on hand.

Remember, having both inspiration and a solid point of reference will help out a ton when you’re in the thick of a hobby-level game development project.

It’s important to document all of your inspiration.

In both of my releases, SanctuaryRPG and Overture, I kept a folder containing all of my favorite aspects from the games that I had enjoyed.

I then used those references as a base from which to continually build upon.

You can also do something similar with your projects. This way, you can easily go back and locate art styles, screenshots, and links that you can refer to when you’re feeling stuck.

Consider ditching the old fashioned static game design document. Don’t intimidate yourself with a hefty design doc that might be obsolete in a few months time.

Instead, focus on getting your ideas together, putting together that inspiration folder, and putting in the work.

Start writing code, and start translating your dreams into gameplay.

We’re all already standing on the shoulders of giants.

Let’s learn from them as well.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post! If you did, It’d be amazing if you could share this on social media so that others can find it as well.

Also, do leave a comment below, I love hearing from you!

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About Daniel Doan

Hi there! I’m the Co-Founder & CGO of Black Shell Media and the developer of SanctuaryRPG and Overture, among dozens of game prototypes. You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

If you’d like to steal my marketing and/or game development knowledge, you can book a consultation with me for only two bucks.