Designer and writer Eron Rauch compiles a wide-ranging list of articles, essays, and other useful resources that game devs can use and share with each
If you’re anything like me, you often find yourself lacking a precise way to explain an idea you have.
Especially when it comes to design and creative work done with other people, there seems to be an endless array of knotty and muddy conversations. I find myself thinking, “If I just had a word for that feeling, or for that… thing… I’d be able to solve the problem in a much more elegant way.”
Well, basically, the following reading list was put together precisely to help you find a few of those words for designing videogames.*
The original title for this resource, “A Few More Word-Tool-Things”, is the result my videogame industry friends (“Hi Jason, Alec, and Sam!”) who prodded me to organize the articles I’ve mentioned during many years of late-night bullshit sessions about game design.**
As the list took shape, my friends suggested topics to research that would be useful for their work, and I went spelunking through endless bookmarks and web searches. The result is this reasonably low-investment and topical way for videogame designers to build their verbal tool kit.
The articles and videos are (with a few exceptions) all fairly short, mostly practical, and loosely arranged by theme. Since they range across a wide variety of design concepts and disciplines, I’ve also included a short summary of each as well as a hashtagged vocab word or phrase to help you better find what you’re looking for.
Use it like a weekly micro-book club with your team; randomly click on articles while you’re drinking a beer at lunch; or read it all from start to finish; however you approach it, I hope you find some interesting and useful words to help you build your projects.
*I’m going to use “videogames” (no space) based on Keogh’s argument that “video games” would technically refer to either A) Those weird 1980s VHS murder mystery games B) Electronic gambling machines; and as Futurama put it so succinctly, technically correct is the best kind of correct. Also, I really don’t care that much, so feel free use find/replace to add the space if you want.
**Those long-running conversations with industry friends are part of the reason you’ll find a disproportionate number of articles I’ve written in the list. Very often, my pieces have been a direct product of trying to answer the thorny questions that came up during those late-night bullshit sessions. So there’s necessarily quite a bit of overlap between what I’ve been writing about and the design topics. That’s right, I’m not a game designer, I’m an artist and arts writer who works with videogames as a core subject, so take any of my editorizaling with a grain of salt.
What makes a game feel internally consistent? How do design, tone, narrative, and systems all come together to make something more than their parts (or cause each other to grind to a halt)? This essay proposes the idea of “coherence” as a way to discuss the relationships of the many moving parts in any game. #coherence
Meticulous statistical breakdowns of many of Final Fantasy VI’s innovations turn out to be surprisingly fascinating. The article’s subsections on ratios of character-to-villain dialog and World of Ruin item design are particularly useful examples of how to craft a coherent but still massive world. #dimmunation_of_class #villian_as_main_character #entire_dungeon
A clever rethinking of the much-ballyhooed “interactivity.” The essay points out that interactivity isn’t a particularly accurate term to describe what usually happens between the possibilities of game system and the players’ reactions to them. #interactivity
Why does everyone seem to be able to do an impression of Christopher Walken? What makes a joke land in standup routine? Why does a Mario game feel like a Mario game? It turns out they all utilize a similar hidden factor: cadence. #cadence
So what, exactly, does it mean to “complete” or “finish” a game? This simple question turns out to be much trickier to pin down than it first seems, with broad ramifications for the ways different players engage with the content of videogames. #full_experience
Survival games are all the rage, with many other types of games incorporating elements from the genre. But many of the most popular survival games turn out to have an incredibly particular relationship to cause and effect (and entertainment). #limited_power
A peek behind the oft-inscrutable curtain of the emergent systems of Dwarf Fortress; and also a deep look at alternative definitions of “play.” #story_generator
While the myth of the auteur permeates creative culture, this piece talks about the value of many unsexy parts of design, specifically, having good data to make better decisions about level design. #rational_level_design
Coming off the heels of a broader discussion about finding a better name than “Rogue-likes”, this essay opens up the conversation about the many ways we define genres, and how those definitions can drastically limit our conception about what is and isn’t possible (for instance “platformer” rather than “Mario-like”) #ludic_devices
With the race toward ever cleaner, 4K-ready graphics, it is important to remember that there are many kinds of other visual experiences. In this case, we have someone examining why the old, misty-muddy, version of Shadow of the Colossus feels more alive than the newer remaster. #fidelity
The videogame community regularly mistakenly uses “realism” when they are really referring to the much more specific artistic style of “photo realism.” But what other kinds of realism are there? #photorealism #neorealism
Grandeur and the sublime, distance and drama. a breakdown of the elements that combine to produce the feeling of expansive, panoramic vistas in games (using Destiny as an example). #panoramic #architectural_form
Traditional stereotypes of quality (wrapped up in sparkling Transformers-esque polish) often get in the way of creating compelling, coherent, and most importantly, memorable, game experiences.
A fantastic long-form look at how characters and narrative spaces in videogames end up gender-coded, and many strategies large and small to build projects with a broader potential audience of players. #gender_signifiers #gender_avatars
Big cities, like New York, Tokyo, or Los Angeles, have an almost palpable energy. This essay talks about why some cities in videogames feel so lifeless, while other manage to capture that organic life. #tactility
Graphics? Check. Action? Check. Coziness? Wha-? This report details the many unexpected ways the small but warm and welcoming places and characters do a surprisingly large amount of the heavy lifting to entice our imaginations into inhabiting imaginary worlds. #coziness
For decades, there has been an odd tendency to treat all videogames as impoverished versions of “true” VR worlds. But the assumption that videogames=virtual worlds can get in the way of an incredibly diverse number of other kinds of ways of thinking about, and making, videogames. #diagesis
There is an unfortunately long lineage of technical failures to image non-white skin tones stretching back into the history of photography. This continues in videogames in both big and small ways (such as having the lighting failing to differentiate darker skin tones against backgrounds). #under-lighting #backgrounding
It is a common trap to assume technique, style, and skill as some sort of naturally occurring force. This piece compares the history of Impressionist painting and indie videogames to show how new, sometimes counterintuitive, techniques are tied to expressing new and novel ideas. #impressionism
While typical conversations about world design focus on the objects that populate the digital environment, the way the camera is utilized is a major factor in the emotional impact of the our experiences in digital spaces. #abstraction
We toss around the words “painterly” and “cinematic” as positive descriptions for highly refined technique. As videogames evolve as a medium, what might the hypothetical equivalent term (and expressive potential) mean for this digital form? #gamerliness
Negative space can be one of the most affecting elements of any visual composition, but by its very nature can be tricky to discuss. This piece take a look at the basics of negative space in art and also practically applies some of those examples to videogames. #negative_space
Looking at moody Parsian paintings from the 19th century, there is a glimmering gem to be discovered about how great creative works tend to build their world around advancing a core linkage of emotional and visual theme. #subject
Starry Night, Migrant Mother, The Blue Guitar; the arts are filled with intensely memorable images that resonate long after we see them. These two essays are two different looks at what game design might be able to glean from the history of image production, both in terms of traditional composition and the history of pattern-making. #visuall_substantial & #pattern
Loaded with innumerable glorious examples, this article shows the hidden but almost ubiquitous influence of a 1700s painter on videogame visuals. There is a massive inspiration board and thematic breakdowns of strategies like “vastness” and “pathways” that are ripe for stealing/inspiration. #romanticism
Oh, the tired ol’ argument between stories and gameplay. This article is a special addition to that beleaguered conversation because of its willingness to roll up its sleeves and get dirty in the details, talking about, for instance, the rarely discussed and oft-confused difference between narrative, story, and plot. #narrative #story #plot
Agency is a buzzword in gaming, and has many more multilayered and subtly interlocking components than simple control. Curiously, by reconstructing the act of playing a game as a kind of performance, gaps and voids become a primary location of agency, which is good, because they’re rather cheaper endless branching story paths. #agency
Metafiction? Isn’t that some word for egghead literary theory majors? This essay breaks down the many ways games use metafictional elements and, critically, does a surprisingly good job of explaining what the hell metafiction is in the first place. #metafiction
NPCs are the dark matter of video game narratives, omnipresent and all-but invisible in our public conversation. This essay uses Shadows of Mordor and Watch Dogs as examples of the way our blindness to designing NPCs as dynamic, human, parts of games accidentally reduces the verbs players can use to experience these worlds. #interior_lives
I love when authors reach outside of the games canon to look at areas that feel ripe for inspiration. In this case, the essay uses the example of the beloved author Haruki Murakami to expand our understanding of ways to tell stories in videogames. #magical_realism
Offering a useful set of archetypes, with concrete examples from games, this article explores some of the more interesting and fully realized women characters in videogames. #strong_women
While not explicitly about videogames, this essay about master fantasy writer Ursula LeGuin talks through some of the subtle values that audiences get from stories, with a focus on how our ideas of self and history are built out of pieces of stories.
