Learning Game Design: Part 1
Learning Game Design: Part 1, available at $34.99, has an average rating of 4.3, with 106 lectures, 3 quizzes, based on 30 reviews, and has 118 subscribers.
You will learn about Learn the fundamentals of game design – any kind of game Learn to avoid false assumptions that many beginning designers believe Learn a process and structure for designing games Learn what makes a game "good" Learn the vital importance of repeated playtesting and modification, the "heart" of game design Create and COMPLETE a game. This is likely to take a long time, likely much longer than it takes to go through the course lectures And much more . . . This course is ideal for individuals who are Anyone who wants help in designing games, professionally or as a hobby It is particularly useful for Anyone who wants help in designing games, professionally or as a hobby.
Enroll now: Learning Game Design: Part 1
Summary
Title: Learning Game Design: Part 1
Price: $34.99
Average Rating: 4.3
Number of Lectures: 106
Number of Quizzes: 3
Number of Published Lectures: 106
Number of Published Quizzes: 3
Number of Curriculum Items: 109
Number of Published Curriculum Objects: 109
Original Price: $34.99
Quality Status: approved
Status: Live
What You Will Learn
- Learn the fundamentals of game design – any kind of game
- Learn to avoid false assumptions that many beginning designers believe
- Learn a process and structure for designing games
- Learn what makes a game "good"
- Learn the vital importance of repeated playtesting and modification, the "heart" of game design
- Create and COMPLETE a game. This is likely to take a long time, likely much longer than it takes to go through the course lectures
- And much more . . .
Who Should Attend
- Anyone who wants help in designing games, professionally or as a hobby
Target Audiences
- Anyone who wants help in designing games, professionally or as a hobby
[Note: This course exists because my original course “Learning Game Design: as a job or a hobby” more than doubled in size over time, becoming much too large for Udemy’s new structure. That massive course is no longer available, instead there is “Learning Game Design” parts 1 and 2. As with that original course, this one is not subject to massive discounts, which only serve to offend those who paid full or near-full price.]
This pair of “Learning Game Design” courses is designed for people who want to design
games – video or tabletop – but lack information about what is really
involved and how to go about it. It’s not rocket science, but
commercial design is a JOB – one that cannot be done by rote, there is
no “Easy Button”. I’m not here to encourage you, or entice you, or entertain you,
I’m here to inform you. I assume you have the motivation to learn how
to design games, you just need to know how. And that means you need to
do it from start to finish, to complete games rather than merely start
them.
We’ll discuss the
process of game design, the possible structures in games, the best way
to start learning game design, what makes a game good (there’s a great
variety of opinion about this), ways to provide a framework for your
design efforts, ways to keep records of your work, software to help you
learn. Many aspiring game designers have crippling misconceptions (such
as the notion that it’s all about a great idea, or that everyone likes the same games they do), and I’ll try to clear those out of
your way.
This is not a “comprehensive” series because there’s no such thing. It is a pair of courses about
learning game design. Learning is a process that goes on throughout a game
designer’s career, and it starts here.
This class will never be offered for free or at very deep discounts.
That is disrespectful to me and to the students who pay full price or
near it.
Keep in mind, this course is not about game development, that is, not about programming, art, sound, and so forth. It is only about game design.Most so-called “game design” courses are actually about game development, with just a little game design involved.
Following are comments from people who took the original course “Learning Game Design: as a job or a hobby”:
Great course! Good for the starter like myself 🙂
Currently I follow this course (at 75% so far) and its a great
course for beginner game designers like myself. The course is not a 1
click button and after your a game designer no (please send message if
you found that course btw) but it gives a good frame work, hand outs,
ideas and background about both video games and tabletop games.
So if you wanted to start with game design this is a great first step.
The teacher is clear and good to follow ( I am a student from The
Netherlands and got no problem following this course). Also the course
got some assignment I strongly recommend doing them I finaly found out
why I Hate Monopoly 🙂
Cheers all hope this was usefull,
Jimmy
==
Mark Frazier
President
Designs In Creative Entertainment, LLC.
An ideal introduction to game design
Dr. Pulsipher distills the critical elements of designing games into
manageable chunks. This is an ideal course to take if you are
interested in designing games, regardless of whether you intend to
pursue it as a career or not.
Much of the
material covers the specifics of the process of game design, but there
is alot of prime advice to be had in the lectures on creating the right
conditions for quality feedback and on understanding the realities of
the publishing business.
A must-have certification if you’re serious about designing, and I’d say, even publishing games!
==
Pull Back the Curtain on the Game Design Process
I know that in the past there’s only been a couple of times that I
managed to blunder into some sort of prototype, but I had no clue as to
what I was doing that was different than usual. Well… the material in
this course nails down precisely what to do to get over that initial
hump. It can save you from countless false starts and dumb ideas. And
unlike other commentary on the design process, Dr. Pulsipher provides a
whole menu of things that you can do in each phase of development.
This material reveals more of the dials and knobs of gaming than I
even knew existed. And being aware of these things was enough to shift
me from having an occasional promising idea to having more ideas than I
know what to do with. Even just playing new games now, I cannot help but
see “behind the curtain” and into the dilemmas the designers were
facing. If you care about game design and actually do the work that this
course entails, you are in for a profoundly illuminating experience.
Course Curriculum
Chapter 1: The Beginning
Lecture 1: Yes, there are fundamental things to know to be a game designer
Lecture 2: What you'll discover
Lecture 3: Introducing the Teacher
Lecture 4: Game Design is Education, not Rote Learning
Lecture 5: The Main Assignment
Lecture 6: Interaction
Lecture 7: Assessment
Lecture 8: Course Length – Depends on How Long Your Game Takes
Lecture 9: Student entry survey – 10 questions, voluntary
Lecture 10: Supplemental books and other materials
Chapter 2: What game design is – and is not
Lecture 1: Definitions
Lecture 2: Six Words about what a Game Designer Is/Does
Lecture 3: Stay Behind the Curtain
Lecture 4: Is game design about "mind control"?
Lecture 5: Monopoly Exercise
Lecture 6: The fundamental difference is NOT video versus tabletop
Lecture 7: Make Money? Maybe. Get Rich? Most Unlikely
Lecture 8: Dreamers
Lecture 9: Typical Illusions of Aspiring Game Designers
Lecture 10: Reasons to Design Games
Lecture 11: Is it really work?! Fun as a hobby, work when it involves trying to make money
Lecture 12: Meaningfulness?
Lecture 13: My take on Monopoly's problems
Chapter 3: The best ways to learn (other than this course!)
Lecture 1: Your Goal: COMPLETE Games
Lecture 2: The Quickest Way to Learn Game Design
Lecture 3: Gamemaker and other game engines
Lecture 4: Gamemaker demo
Lecture 5: Creating Levels and Making Mods
Lecture 6: Traditional Games are NOT a Good Guide
Lecture 7: A Monopoly "solution"
Lecture 8: When you first do any complicated thing, you won't be good at it
Lecture 9: Formal Education (a degree?)
Lecture 10: Play Lots of Games? Maybe.
Lecture 11: Ranking sources of information about game design, part 1
Lecture 12: Ranking sources of information about game design, part 2
Chapter 4: Getting Started
Lecture 1: An Exercise in Awareness
Lecture 2: The Idea is NOT the Game – Part 1
Lecture 3: The Idea is NOT the Game – Part 2
Lecture 4: Innovation is Highly Overrated
Lecture 5: Origins of Games
Lecture 6: Making Your Very First Game
Lecture 7: Using Someone Else's Intellectual Property? Avoid it!
Lecture 8: Games, Puzzles, and Contests
Lecture 9: "Atoms" and "Game Loops"
Lecture 10: Games Need Simplicity, Puzzles May Benefit from Complexity
Lecture 11: Quotations related to game design
Lecture 12: The System and the Psychological
Lecture 13: Three Kinds of Games: Math, People, Story
Lecture 14: "Rules emergent" versus "Progressive"
Lecture 15: Avoiding player elimination
Lecture 16: Confusion: the difference between progress and stages in games
Lecture 17: Protecting Your Intellectual Property?
Lecture 18: Designer Diary: Dragon Rage tabletop game
Lecture 19: Example of additional voice notes for tabletop War of the Roses game
Lecture 20: Example of initial voice notes for tabletop War in the Abyss game
Lecture 21: Example of initial notes for fleet battle game resembling Spelljammer battles
Lecture 22: Where are you with your game design? (1)
Chapter 5: The Process of Design
Lecture 1: Stratego Exercise Introduction
Lecture 2: Talent versus Technique
Lecture 3: The Artisan, the Engineer, and the Mimic
Lecture 4: Game Design Documents and Problems
Lecture 5: Mind-mapping example
Lecture 6: Game Concepts, Treatments, and other Marketing Documents
Lecture 7: Sample Video Game High Concept: Fury of the Northmen
Lecture 8: Sample Video Game High Concept: Dragons Rage
Lecture 9: Models, Abstractions, Simulations
Lecture 10: The Nine Structures of any Game
Lecture 11: Some Essential Questions
Lecture 12: Chess Exercise
Lecture 13: Systems Analysis of the Design Process
Lecture 14: Other views of the process
Lecture 15: Phases, three acts, or five, or nine, or Hero's journey
Lecture 16: Research
Lecture 17: No Room for Perfectionism – a Game is Never Really "Done"
Lecture 18: How important is creativity to game design?
Lecture 19: Conceiving a new game
Lecture 20: Are you a game designer or a fiction writer?
Lecture 21: The Many Meanings of the Word "Theme"
Lecture 22: One Common *Wrong* Way to Make a Game, Part 1
Lecture 23: One Common *Wrong* Way to Make a Game, Part 2
Chapter 6: Other Considerations
Lecture 1: A long-term trend in games: Avatars
Lecture 2: The Programmed (Computer) Opponent (AI)
Lecture 3: Platforms
Lecture 4: Tabletop game interfaces
Lecture 5: Monetization of F2P Games
Lecture 6: Mobile Games
Lecture 7: Social Deduction Games
Lecture 8: Gamification (Really, Scorification)
Lecture 9: Why Roguelike games are making a comeback
Lecture 10: Game Styles: Corporate Manager versus Commander
Lecture 11: Game Styles: Coach versus General Manager
Instructors
-
Lewis Pulsipher
Commercially Published Game Designer, College Teacher
Rating Distribution
- 1 stars: 2 votes
- 2 stars: 3 votes
- 3 stars: 7 votes
- 4 stars: 7 votes
- 5 stars: 11 votes
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have access to the course materials?
You can view and review the lecture materials indefinitely, like an on-demand channel.
Can I take my courses with me wherever I go?
Definitely! If you have an internet connection, courses on Udemy are available on any device at any time. If you don’t have an internet connection, some instructors also let their students download course lectures. That’s up to the instructor though, so make sure you get on their good side!
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