Playing Like A Game Designer

The Designer: Issue #1

This is the first issue of The Designer, a brand-new Newsletter for paid subscribers. In addition to more comprehensive design lessons, this newsletter will feature educational videos, interactive assignments, supporting content from the podcast, and other unique posts.

• Free Subscribers get access to my podcast episodes and lots of my articles on game design and creativity. Free articles will be archived after two months, which means you’ll have plenty of time to read and absorb all the lessons.

• Paid subscribers get full access to all the articles and podcasts, including those which have been archived. They’ll also unlock this additional newsletter called The Designer. Additionally, the comments section for paid articles will be a unique space aimed at nurturing a community brimming with educational value and creative energy.

Paid subscriptions allow me to invest more time into the podcasts and newsletters while keeping much of it free to the public. If you feel these newsletters and podcasts inspire, entertain, or inform you, I hope you consider a paid subscription.

If a paid subscription is not financially feasible for you and you would like to access The Designer, please email support@stoneblade.com for a comped subscription.

Of course, this is only the beginning! Like any great game or creative project, iteration is key, so as I move forward, I’ll evolve the newsletter, ensuring our subscribers receive ever-increasing value.

Your support for both the newsletter and podcast is immensely appreciated, and I believe you’re going to love all the new content I’ve got lined up.

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Playing Games Like A Game Designer

The core principle of game design (your mantra) is as follows:

Player experience is the only metric that matters.

To be a great game designer, you must be able to predict your players’ emotional responses to the rules you design. Predictions require a degree of empathy and the ability to understand why people play games. You must both determine the actions that players will take within a given game and understand how those actions will make players feel.

Don’t believe me?