The best game design articles on the site

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The best game design articles on the site

This is post #2,342 on this blog (not counting the dozens of articles, snippets, and presentations not in the blog database)… yet more of the over a quarter-million words written here since the site started in 1997 and the blog in 1998. And I have to admit, I tend to take for granted the idea that people have read all the stuff that matters, so they understand me when I throw around terms or assume that they know what my past writing on the topic is. Whih is ludicrous, of course.

So I got asked on Twitter for a list of my juiciest game design posts, to serve as a central jumping-off point.

This was hard. But here's a list of ones that I think are my best. Many of these are actually talks, rather than posts. These are usually in sort of rough reverse chronological order, but there's plenty of places where they are juts in the order I found them in, or random cut & paste order.

Feel free to list your own favorites in the comments. And if you haven't seen some of these before, well, this is the best way to catch up on my overall beliefs and philosophies on games.

Theory of fun (cognition and games) and game grammar overview. This covers the very highest level structure of the thinking on these two interrelated subjects.

Game grammar articles, diving deeper into specificall analyzing a single feature, or a single aspect of the grammar.

On the game development process. These articles are about the process of making the sausage, about production.

On experience/narrative design. Even though I have been on a ludologically-inclined blogging kick lately, I have also spent plenty of time on the narrative and environmental qualities of games.

On games as art. I got on this hobbyhorse around 1996 and have never stopped. This section includes reactions to a few games analyzed as art.

General game design. Just a catch-all. Most of these are about MMO design in one way or another.

Game economies. A large enough sub-category of the design stuff that I pulled it out.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2011/07/01/does-a-virtual-economy-affect-player-retention/http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/04/28/why-isnt-money-points/http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/20/more-on-flation-and-the-future/http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/12/24/dermtingwow/http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/12/23/digging-more-into-rmt/http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/12/21/does-trading-suck/http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/08/20/why-have-gold-anyway/

Community design. These all have community in common in one way or another. They do not touch on community management, however — see lower down for that.

SWG design articles/anecdotes. No full post-mortem though.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/04/30/dynamic-pois/http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/pkphilosophy.shtml http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/19/community-building/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/05/the-arts-in-mmos http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/01/04/treating-players-like-numbers/

UO design articles/anecdotes. For this one, the postmortem comes first.

http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/postmortem.shtml http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/03/uos-resource-system/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/04/uos-resource-system-part-2/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/05/uos-resource-system-part-3/http://www.raphkoster.com/2005/12/20/the-end-of-the-world http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/24/random-uo-anecdote-1/http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/11/24/how-uo-rares-were-born/

Misc other game postmortems. I have never written up anything about dozens of the games I have made. But here is some stuff, particularly the design blogs for Andean Bird.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2005/12/17/beowulf/http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/03/10/metaplace-game-jam-postmortem/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/11/a-vague-game-idea/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/14/pking-duck-more-on-the-vague-game-idea/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/20/vague-game-less-vague-andean-bird-03/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/08/23/andean-bird-04/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/09/19/in-the-newbies-shoes/

On ethics in game design. Another long-standing hobbyhorse. These have to do with ethical game design specifically.

On player rights. These are about treating players ethically.

http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/playerrights.shtml http://www.raphkoster.com/2011/04/10/avatar-rights-come-back/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/07/03/the-commandments-of-online-worlds/http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/04/10/paternalistic-or-libertine http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/ethicsofonlinedesign.shtml

On serious games/gamification. I started writing about serious games around when the book came out, long before "gamification" was a buzzword.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2011/01/04/feedback-does-not-equal-game-design/http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/02/18/gameifying-everything/http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/12/09/the-ludic-fallacy/http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/influences.shtml http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/12/02/games-for-change-closing-address/http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/03/19/should-virtual-worlds-change-the-real/http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/01/04/treating-players-like-numbers/

On games as a business. Most of the business-related articles are obsolete, since they were of their time. However, I linked stuff here that was either generally useful, or that dealt specifically with large-scale changes in the industry.

On community & marketing. Two deeply related topics. These are mostly advice on how to do community relations.