Games Design Essays

• Evolutionary Game Design
• Why you should share your game designs
• Software Development's Evolution towards Product Design
• Managing game design risk: Part I
• Managing game design risk: Part II - Data Driven Development
• Ze Story Snobs
• Creating a system of game play notation
• Playground game design as a sustainable competitive advantage
• Community sites as games: The tip of the iceberg
• Games are designer food for infovores
• Cheap custom whiteboards for rapid game prototyping
• Paintbox games: Games that serve as augmented creativity tools
• Article: "How to prototype a game in under 7 days" on Gamasutra
• Common Game Prototyping Pitfalls
• Secret Life of Aliens: First Prototypes
• The Secret Life of Aliens: A Redesign
• User Content: Working with players to efficiently create profitable games
• Confessions of a horrible game player
• How small game team efficiency compares to other media
• Small Teams Kicking Arse: Defining "HPD"
• Short Games Rock
• Design Testing: The use of addiction metrics to force rapid evolution of innovative game designs
• Article: Usability Testing
• A practical definition of innovation in game design
• Using a blog as a game design document
• GameInnovation.org
• Space Crack: A gift prototype

Game Designs

• Space Crack: Introduction
• Space Crack: Why Space Crack?
• Space Crack: Verbs
• Space Crack: Planet Basics
• Space Crack: Fixing the Turn-based Strategy genre
• Space Crack: Building a gameplay parts list
• Space Crack: Using Planets to Build Territories
• Space Crack: Ships
• Space Crack: Simple Combat
• Space Crack: Starting the game and ending the game
• Space Crack: Component Bible
• Space Crack: The Space Opera
• Space Crack: Financial Mechanics
• Giants and Castles
• ComicAll: A social board game design

Game Culture

• A five step program to move beyond the game geek culture
• The joyful life of the lapsed game developer
• Team culture matters
• A short interview with a lady friend: Why video games are pointless
• Tyrian Comic
• Pick your game community: Virtual or Real
• The Blind Men and the Elephant: Thoughts on an integrative framework for understanding games
• What is the critical mass necessary to create a major world culture in an online game?
• The myth of programmer-designer greatness
• Programmer Design: Sinistar graphics put to use
• Religion as a game
• News: Chinese Government to influence MMOGs
• Out of work MMOG designers will rule the world
• The child and the glass of poison: Our social duty to educate
• My first experience with a PSP

Future Ideas

• Flashlight Computer
• The Financial Gameboy
• Viki: A visual wiki design
• Movie Theater Games

Free Game Graphics

• More free game graphics:
  Set of Zelda-style tiles
• 250 free handdrawn textures:
  Set of textures for a 3D engine
• 8-bit Sinistar clone graphics:
  Set of 8-bit space shooter graphics
• Hard Vacuum:
  Set of 8-bit RTS graphics

Game Design Reviews

• Nintendogs: the case of the non-game that barked like a game
• Guitar Hero and Wierd World
• Brain Training for Adults
• Advance Wars - Dual Strike
• Oasis: How to create an ineffective game demo

Book Reviews

• Raph Koster's "Theory of Fun for Game Design"
• Book Review: 21st Century Game Design

Market Fundementals

• Nintendo's Genre Innovation Strategy: Thoughts on the Revolution's New Controller
• Nintendo Genre Innovation Strategy: Comments and Followups
• Bursty Indie Sales Cycles
• Who knew Pikachu was so big
• Never innovate halfway
• The root of shock game advertising
• Convergence: A great word to hate
• Idly gathered game industry statistics of doom
• A Game Business Model: Learning from Touring Bands
• How to Design Online Crack
• Game Genre Lifecycle: Part IV
• Game Genre Lifecycle: Part III
• Game Genre Lifecycle Part II
• Game Genre Lifecycle: Part I
• My Name is Daniel and I am a Genre Addict
• Massively Multiplayer Casual Games
• The brave new world of Indie console games

Serious games

• Vistech 2005: Thoughts on the military industrial game complex
• Serious Games: A broader definition

Art Essays

• The Neo-Retro Art Style: Savior of the game industry?
• Lessons from the Land of Pixel Art
• Erotic Mathematics: Lessons in Perception
• Space Crack: Monkeying with 2D art
• Space Crack: Graphics and UI Test
• Space Crack: An artistic dilemma
• Space Crack: Graphics Mockup
• SpaceCrack: Game Concept Sketches
• New Painting: "Manekineko - The Beckoning Cat"
• Small Worlds

Miscelleneous

• The Mission of LostGarden
• Off topic: Lessons from Starbucks
• Unofficial GDC Blogger Bar Meetup
• GDC means beverages
• Notes from FlashForward 2006
• Valentine's Day 2006
• Random Notes from Mr. Fever
• News: Station Exchange deemed an early success
• What do you want to see on Lost Garden?
• Paper Nintendo Characters
• E3: There and back again

Personal

• Big News: The Newest Gig
• Back in America
• Off to Japan
• News Flash: Game Designer gets the Hot Girl