Designing Narrative Choice - Add Branching Paths to Game Stories Without a AAA Budget ~ Design Doc @DesignDoc

Design Doc Story driven games that let you make choices are great! But branching paths in games are tricky, and can make game budgets explode. How can you design game narratives to let players make big choices without a big budget?
*Spoiler Warning for Telltale's Game of Thrones Series*

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updated 7 years ago

Designing Narrative Choice - Add Branching Paths to Game Stories Without a AAA Budget ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2017-08-27 | Story driven games that let you make choices are great! But branching paths in games are tricky, and can make game budgets explode. How can you design game narratives to let players make big choices without a big budget?
*Spoiler Warning for Telltale's Game of Thrones Series*

Support Design Doc on Patreon and help us release videos faster:
http://www.patreon.com/designdoc

twitter.com/Warbot400

What Makes A Great Impossible Boss?

Design Doc 2023-05-05 | Get 20% OFF + Free Shipping @Manscaped with promo code DESIGNDOC at manscaped.com/designdoc

An impossible boss sounds like an unworkable idea. Yet, they're everywhere in games! Clearly, it does work. What game design techniques can you use to create fun in an unwinnable situation? It's going to take some lateral thinking. Let's talk about how to find the fun in something impossible.

Featuring:
Paper Mario
Final Fantasy IX
Halo Reach
Resident Evil 2 Remake
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Dread
Final Fantasy VIII
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Dynasty Warriors
Devil May Cry 5

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#residentevil #metroid #papermario

What Makes A Good Difficulty Option?

Design Doc 2023-04-08 | Go to brilliant.org/DesignDoc to get a 30-day free trial + the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual subscription!

Game difficulty is hard. It's tough to strike the right balance between a game that plays too easy or too hard. The sweet spot is a constantly moving target, different for different players and even for the same players at different times. Let's talk about what goes into designing video game difficulty options to be the most fun for the most people, most of the time.

Featuring:
God of War Ragnarok
Bubsy
Halo
Metroid Dread
Resident Evil 4
Beat Saber
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose
Cuphead
Goldeneye
A Hat in Time
Pizza Tower
Bug Fables
Hades
Kid Icarus Uprising
Super Smash Bros 4
Also Featuring clips of Vernal Edge at 0:32 and Freedom Planet 2 at 10:44

Mark Brown's video on the challenges of designing difficulty in a game you're making: youtube.com/watch?v=2G84mU3WPaE

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#gamedesign #pizzatower #residentevil4

What Makes Good Rhythm Game UX?

Design Doc 2023-03-07 | Check out Displate and get an exclusive discount: displate.com/designdoc/?art=63c5be8c17302 ~ 1-2 Displates: 22% OFF / 3 or more Displates: 33% OFF

Rhythm games depend on good UX. RPGs with terrible menus are fine. Janky shooters sell millions of copies all the time. But rhythm games with bad UX can be dead in the water. Building a competent user interface for a rhythm game isn't all rocket science, though. Let’s go over some basic must-haves for making a rhythm game UX, and some cautionary tales of games that didn’t hit the cue.

Featuring:
Parappa the Rapper
Vib Ribbon
Dance Dance Revolution
Rhythm Heaven Fever
Guitar Hero
Rock Band
A Dance of Fire and Ice
Beat Saber
Hi-Fi Rush
No Straight Roads
Crypt of the Necrodancer
BPM: Bullets Per Minute
Mad Rat Dead
Melatonin and others briefly

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Lightning sound copyright RHumphries, used under Creative Commons 4.0: freesound.org/people/RHumphries/sounds/2523

#gamedesign #hifirush #dancedancerevolution

Whats the Deal with Fast Travel?

Design Doc 2023-02-17 | Sign up to Milanote for free with no time limit: milanote.com/designdoc0223

Fast travel is a bedrock of game design, but what's the point of fast travel anyway? Yeah, haha, it's so you can travel fast. But... why is it around to begin with? How does it make parts of a game more fun? Why are we using it to skip parts of a game? When can it all go wrong? Let's talk about the different shapes a fast travel system can take.

Featuring:
Skyrim
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Elden Ring
Final Fantasy XIV
Ocarina of Time
Metroid Prime
Spelunky
Spiderman
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

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#gamedesign #breathofthewild #eldenring

What Makes A Great Double Boss Fight?

Design Doc 2023-01-23 | Go to my sponsor aura.com/designdoc to try 14 days free and let Aura go to work protecting your private information online.

If one thing good, then two thing... more good. Right?

Yeah, kinda. Double bosses are a unique fight form factor that can make for memorable encounters, but there are unique pitfalls to avoid that can depend on what type of double boss you're trying to make. Let's go over some!

Featuring:
Hollow Knight
Batman Arkham Asylum
Streets of Rage 4
Super Mario 3D Land
Megaman X Legacy Collection
Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Hades
No More Heroes 2
Bug Fables
Dark Souls
Devil May Cry 3
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Nier: Automata

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#hollowknight #gamedesign #darksouls

What Makes A Cool Winter Level?

Design Doc 2022-12-10 | 👟 Vessis are the perfect gift under the tree and on your feet. Get the style and size you want now before they sell out! Check out their Holiday Sale at vessi.com/DESIGNDOC code DESIGNDOC for 15% off your entire order if you missed the sale. Free shipping to CA, US, AU, JP, TW, KR, SGP, “Online Store”

It's winter! Have some winter levels! Lots of games have some kind of ice or snow themed level, but there are so many different ways that a game can take the idea. Designers of great winter levels understand how the winter theme can tie to genre to elevate the level to something both cohesive and thematic. Let's talk about some great winter levels and how the idea fits into different game genres.

Featuring:
Super Mario 64
Marble It Up
Ristar
Rayman
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Overcooked
Soul Calibur 2
Forza Horizon 4
Mario Kart 8
Sonic stuff
Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade and Binding Blade
Advance Wars
Star Fox Assault
Lost Planet
Skyrim
Breath of the Wild
Undertale
Pokemon Platinum
And lots of slidey puzzles

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#gamedesign #donkeykong #leveldesign

Whats The Point of a Day-Night Cycle in Games?

Design Doc 2022-11-28 | Sign up to Milanote for free with no time limit: milanote.com/designdoc1122

Games have to change as you're playing them to keep players interested, but that change could mean almost anything. Day-night cycles help create a platform on which lots of different kinds of changes can exist, and the idea is flexible enough to help game designers get just the kind of change they need to support the kind of game they want to make. Let's talk about great day-night cycles and how they support an ever-changing game.

Featuring:
Super Mario Sunshine
Mario Kart 64
Final Fantasy IX
Devil May Cry 3
Resident Evil 4
Lots of Zeldas:
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Moonlighter
Mario Party 6
Don't Starve
Animal Crossing
Shenmue
Pokemon, gens 2 through now

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#gamedesign #majorasmask #animalcrossing

How Do You Make Good Game Tutorials? - Good Design, Bad Design

Design Doc 2022-10-31 | Play War Thunder for FREE on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S: warthunder.com/en/play4free?r=utb_DesignDoc# . Follow the link to download the game and get your exclusive bonus now. Thank you for supporting the channel!

We’re back with another Good Design, Bad Design, where we look at the great and terrible graphic design and visual communication in video games. Nothing says ‘Presentation of Information’ quite like a tutorial. Let’s look at some good and bad tutorial levels and sequences. Then, why leaving all your instructions in the instruction manual might be a bad idea, and a modern update to the concept of the instruction manual itself. Last, we’ll look at some symbols that might get lost in translation.

Featuring:
Splatoon 3
Sonic Unleashed
Driver
Tunic
Splatoon again
Kirby Super Star briefly
DDR 5th Mix JP
Katamari Damacy

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#splatoon #sonicunleashed #gamedesign

What Makes a Good Cast of Game Villains?

Design Doc 2022-10-14 | ⚙️ Download GameMaker for free and start today: https://opr.as/GMDesign-Doc
Thanks to GameMaker for sponsoring the video!

Writing one villain is hard. But SEVEN villains? That’s like… twice as hard. So why go through the effort of creating a whole cast of villains for a game? Well, they can unlock group dynamics that you won’t get any other way. You just get a level of complexity that you can’t get from Johnny SingleBad. Let’s talk about how to build a bad team.

Featuring:
Mega Man
Persona 4
Metal Gear Solid 1, 3, and 4
Star Fox 64 AND Star Fox Adventures
Yakuza Zero
No More Heroes
Sonic Forces
Kingdom Hearts, mostly in B-roll though
Freedom Planet 2, in more B-roll. Go play Freedom Planet 2.

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#yakuza #persona4 #gamedesign

Why Do Games Shift in Tone?

Design Doc 2022-09-16 | Play War Thunder for FREE on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S: https://playwt.link/designdoc . Follow the link to download the game and get your exclusive bonus now. Thank you for supporting the channel!

Some game series make a big shift in tone. The developers become afraid that a game's design is getting too stale, or think that the audience's tastes are changing, or something else happens that makes them decide to switch things up. But what are those reasons, and does it work? Let's talk about 5 game series that have had drastic tone shifts and how it worked out for them.

Featuring:
Jak and Daxter
Advance Wars
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Fuse
Tetris Effect

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What Makes A Good Secret Boss?

Design Doc 2022-08-22 | Head to thld.co/geologie_designdoc_0822 and take their free skincare quiz to save up to 70% off on your 30 days trial. Even better, join their new Geologie Galaxie community for more daily tips, giveaways and more at discord.gg/geologie. Thanks to Geologie for sponsoring today’s video!

Secret bosses aren't just optional bosses. The secret within every secret boss creates depth in game design and the possibility of even more to find. The path a game takes to create a secret boss is unique, and the huge variety of options will shape the type of experience that players will get out of the hunt for a secret boss. Let's talk about how to build a good secret boss, from the road to the destination.

Featuring:
Cuphead
Persona 4
Golden Sun
Persona 5
A Hat In Time
Final Fantasy IX
Kirby series
Dance Dance Revolution (I snuck it in there)
Deltarune
Street Fighter II
Super Smash Bros Melee
Kingdom Hearts

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What Makes A Game Speedrun Friendly?

Design Doc 2022-07-20 | Go to buyraycon.com/designdoc for 15% off your order! Brought to you by Raycon.

Speedrunning is a beautiful game living within every game. I love it. But not every game is equally speedrun friendly. Getting into high-end speedrunning is daunting. It's a time sink and can be extremely frustrating if a few design decisions go the wrong way. You can design a game to be more speedrun friendly, though, and to more of your game's players than you might think. Let's talk about how you can design a game to give the thrill of The Run to everyone!

Featuring:
Neon White go play it now
Celeste
Demon Turf
Stuntman
Elden Ring
Fire Emblem
Goldeneye

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#neonwhite #gamedesign #celeste

Whats The Point of Elements in Games?

Design Doc 2022-06-25 | Get organized with Milanote, for free! milanote.com/designdoc0622

Elements! They're everywhere in games. Suspiciously everywhere, come to think of it. Elemental motifs bleed into character design, locations, battle mechanics, story, and more. But what makes it so appealing to use elements in so many different ways? Let's take a tour of the elements and see how their extreme flexibility can help build a game.

Featuring:
Kingdom Hearts
Golden Sun
Borderlands 2
Persona 3
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Pokemon Sword and Shield
Final Fantasy XIII
Ring Fit Adventure
Final Fantasy X
Breath of the Wild
Lost Odyssey
Luigi's Mansion
Pikmin
Skies of Arcadia

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#gamedesign #pokemon #kingdomhearts

How Do Save Systems Shape Games?

Design Doc 2022-05-20 | Go to buyraycon.com/designdoc for 15% off your order! Brought to you by Raycon.

Save systems shape way more of a game than you might think. No matter the type - from passwords, manual saves, autosaves, checkpoints, or games with no save system to speak of - saves can dictate what a game encourages, what it values, and even what the game can be at all. Some combos of saves and game types lead to entirely new subgenres. Get it wrong, though, and you might undercut the very thing the game wants to highlight. Let's talk about saves, how they impact game design, and some things to watch out for if you're making your own game.

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#shovelknight #undertale #gamedesign

Mario Kart Tracks: How Have They Evolved?

Design Doc 2022-04-18 | Thanks to Keeps for sponsoring this video! Head to keeps.com/designdoc to get 50% off your first order of hair loss treatment.

Mario Kart has been the gold standard of kart racing for so long that it can be easy to take for granted, but the series is not a static thing. There have been gradual shifts in game design over time that you can really only see if you zoom all the way out. Especially in the series' track design. Let's go over the series, from Super Mario Kart to 8 Deluxe, and look at how the track design philosophy has changed and adapted over time.

Featuring:
Super Mario Kart
Mario Kart 64
Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario Kart Double Dash!!!
Mario Kart DS
Mario Kart Wii
Mario Kart 7
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
It's all the Mario Karts. 'Cept the other ones.

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#mariokart #gamedesign #tracks

How Do You Improve Turn Based Combat?

Design Doc 2022-03-25 | Get organized with Milanote, for free! milanote.com/designdoc0322

I love turn-based combat. Most of the time. But there are plenty of pain points that all kinds of games with turn-based combat keep running into. Fixing those points doesn't have to mean changing what makes the style great. Let's talk about some common game design problems turn-based combat games run into and how you can make JRPGs, tactics games, and more the best they can be.

Featuring:
Pokemon
Final Fantasy V
Super Mario RPG
Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam
Unlimited SaGa
Persona 5
Shin Megami Tensei V
Bravely Default 2
Grandia 2
Child of Light
Radiant Historia
Return to PopoloCrois
Tactics Ogre
Dragon Quest XI
Fire Emblem
Final Fantasy VIII
Chrono Cross
Disgaea

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#rpgs #jrpg #gamedesign

Whats The Point of a First Level?

Design Doc 2022-02-15 | Get Exclusive NordVPN deal here ↣ nordvpn.com/designdoc
It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! 👍 (don't do that steam thing, that's a ToS issue, whoops)

Games only get one chance to make a first impression. The first level in any game has responsibilities to the player that it can't get away from, but with that comes opportunities to hook in a player for the long term. Great first levels are a combination of a crash course and a sales pitch, but how any game balances those two can determine whether their players stick around for the long haul. Let's talk about some techniques that games use to figure out how to teach, and what to showcase.

Featuring:
Super Mario 64
Superhot
Mario Kart
Sonic Heroes
Shadow the Hedgehog
Star Fox 64
Bayonetta
Bastion
Devil May Cry 5
Yakuza Kiwami
Chrono Cross

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#mario64 #sonic #gamedesign

What Makes A Good Colossal Boss?

Design Doc 2022-01-13 | 🕹 Browser games! Play more than 500 original games on GXC, like Doodle Alive: https://opr.as/DesignDoc-DoodleAlive Thanks to GXC for sponsoring this video!

Colossal bosses are instant centerpieces for any game, but their very presence can wreak havoc on a game’s camera, mechanics, movement, and animation systems. Let’s talk about how to design a giant boss fight, work around some of the issues, and make a truly epic encounter.

Featuring:
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Streets of Rage 4
The Legend of Korra
Final Fantasy XV
Asura’s Wrath
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy XIV
Shin Megami Tensei V
CrossCode
Bowser’s Fury
Ikaruga
Solar Ash
Metal Gear Rising
Shadow of the Colossus

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#bossfight #gamedesign #solarash

What Makes a Good RPG Town?

Design Doc 2021-12-17 | Thanks to .design for sponsoring this video! Get your .design domain by clicking this link → thld.co/dotdesign_designdoc1221

Towns are so common in RPGs that it can be easy to overlook what a good RPG town is actually doing to a game's design. Let's dissect what makes for a great RPG town, mechanically and in storytelling, and check out how we can create a town that's functional and memorable.

Featuring:
Pokemon
Final Fantasy V
Chrono Cross
Dragon Quest XI
Trails in the Sky
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Paper Mario 64

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#jrpg #chronocross #dragonquest

Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 13 with JoCat - Advance Wars, Chicory, Astroneer and More ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2021-11-20 | Go to curiositystream.thld.co/DESIGNDOC and use code DESIGNDOC to save 25% off today, that’s only $14.99 a year!
Thanks to Curiosity Stream for sponsoring today's video.

JoCat's channel: youtube.com/channel/UCRDVE5L1LTWhmPAKKbUBGtg

It's been a while since the last Good Design, Bad Design, but we brought a friend! JoCat is here to help teach y'all about the Presentation of Information. Come take a look at some game UIs we've dredged up and maybe learn something along the way.

Featuring:
Astroneer
The Forest
Lotsa Diegetic UIs
Chicory
Ephemeral Fantasia
Digimon World: Data Squad
Advance Wars
Wargroove
A Mysterious Link
Final Fantasy XIV Cameos

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#advancewars #chicory #jocat

How Do You Make Fun Unlockables?

Design Doc 2021-10-22 | Get Milanote for free: milanote.com/designdoc1021

Unlocks aren't complicated systems, but what they can bring to a game is complex. Unlocks can serve a number of game design goals to help make a game more fun and keep it interesting to a player over the long term. Today we're talking about how to make fun game unlockables, how to pair criteria and prizes to get the effect you want, and take a tour through one of my favorites, Smash Bros' unlockables.

Featuring:
Smash Bros (all of them)
Warioware: Get It Together
Psychonauts 2
Mini Motorways
Devil May Cry
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII
Kingdom Hearts 2
Streets of Rage 4
Sonic Mega Collection
Super Mario World
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania
Goldeneye 64

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#smashbros #gamedesign #warioware

How Do You Make A Great Sequel?

Design Doc 2021-09-16 | Thanks to Core for sponsoring this video - Download Core to play and create PC games for FREE at bit.ly/Core-DesignDoc

There's nothing like a second chance to make a first impression. Sequels come with baggage and can be even harder to make than the original game. Psychonauts 2 and Mini Motorways are very different games with very different development teams, but both found a path to becoming fantastic followups to Psychonauts and Mini Metro. How did they do it? Come on in and watch!

--
Psychonauts developer notes series can be found here: youtu.be/9WWSsw-16vw
Dinosaur Polo Club interview available at Twinfinite: twinfinite.net/2021/07/mini-motorways-interview-dinosaur-polo-club-talks-aesthetics-traffic-their-name
--
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#psychonauts #minimotorways #gamedesign

What Makes A Great First Boss?

Design Doc 2021-08-23 | The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: https://skl.sh/designdoc08211

Final bosses get all the glory, but first bosses are where the magic happens. A well-designed first boss kicks a game into second gear and sets the trajectory for how the rest of the game will go, no matter if the boss is story-focused, a mechanical challenge, or the ever-elusive ‘both’. Let’s talk about how to make a video game's first boss an effective showcase for where a game plans to go next.

Featuring:
Hollow Knight
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Mega Man Network Transmission
Persona 5
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney the second one
Undertale

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Why Is It So Hard To Make Games On Rails?

Design Doc 2021-07-20 | Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/designdoc and enter promo code DESIGNDOC for 83% off and 3 extra months for free!

It can't be that hard to make a game on rails. Just stick a spaceship in a box and put some enemies in front of it, right? Well, it's a little more complicated than that, and you can do so much more than just lasers and spaceships. Let's talk about the design of games on rails, what makes them special, and what a bunch of games have done to help deliver a thrill ride.

Featuring:
Sin and Punishment: Star Successor
Kingdom Hearts
Rez Infinite
Panzer Dragoon
Time Crisis 4
House of the Dead 2
Yar's Revenge (2011)
Star Fox 64
New Pokemon Snap
Ex Zodiac
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Ring Fit Adventure

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What Makes a Game Cozy? ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2021-06-30 | The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: https://skl.sh/designdoc06211

Sometimes we all need a chill game to relax to. But what makes a game cozy? What can you do to make a game cozier than average? Let's talk about it, and go over some of my cozy favorite video games of the past couple years.

Featuring:
A Short Hike
Grow Home
Untitled Goose Game
Night in the Woods

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#ashorthike #nightinthewoods #untitledgoosegame

Whatever Happened to Random Battles?

Design Doc 2021-06-17 | Get Milanote for free: milanote.com/designdoc0621
Sometimes games and game mechanics just drift apart. JRPGs and random encounters used to go hand-in-hand in game design, but they’re becoming harder to find together now. Whatever happened to them? Let’s talk about how RPGs and random battles got to know each other, got on each other’s nerves, and fell out of love, and see if there’s anything they can do to get the magic back.

Featuring:
Final Fantasy I
Pokemon
Skies of Arcadia
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy VIII
Golden Sun
Xenoblade Chronicles
Wild ARMS 3
Bravely Default
The World Ends With You
Lost Odyssey
Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga

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How Do You Build RPG Party Chemistry?

Design Doc 2021-05-28 | The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: https://skl.sh/designdoc05211

RPGs are great at telling long-form stories, and great parties help make their stories stick with you for a long time. But how do you go about building a great party dynamic? It's more than any one character, more than the archetypes, more than the ships. It's about character dynamics and pacing and putting the jigsaw pieces together to create something more than the sum of its parts. Let's talk about some games that do a great job at building great RPG party chemistry, and a few medium-bad ones too.

Featuring:
Final Fantasy X
Octopath Traveler
Final Fantasy XV
Bug Fables
Paper Mario
Mass Effect
Fire Emblem
Valkyria Chronicles
Chrono Cross

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Whats the Point of Critical Hits?

Design Doc 2021-04-30 | The first 1,000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: https://skl.sh/designdoc04211

Critical hits have been around for 50 years, but you'd be selling them short if you just think of critical hits as big damage numbers. Dragon Quest holds one of the first attempts to add basic crits to video games, but you can get a lot more creative with it. Games like Pokemon and Final Fantasy incorporated elements like status effects. Gears of War and Halo made the critical hit concept work in shooters, and Monster Hunter used the Negative Affinity system to really bend expectations. In between, there are countless indie games remixing and adapting the concept to create something new.

Let's dissect the critical hit and look at how you can use them to their full potential.

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#persona5 #monsterhunterrise #dragonquest

The Zelda Pattern - How to Spice Up Bland Game Boss Design ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2021-04-09 | Go to audible.com/designdoc or text DESIGNDOC to 500 500 and start listening today.

Consider Link. An average boy from Kokiri Forest with a strange curse. Doomed to repeat the same boss design over and over. Be warned, viewer. You've entered... The Zelda Pattern.

Let's talk about a repeated pattern in The Legend of Zelda's boss design, and how you can break out of it.

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#zelda #breathofthewild #ocarinaoftime

Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 12 - Video Game Graphic Design at its Best and Worst

Design Doc 2021-03-15 | Go listen to The Magnus Archives over at http://www.rustyquill.com or find it in your podcast app of choice. Thanks to them for sponsoring this episode!

We’ve got video games and we’ve got graphic design in Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 12. Let’s talk about diegetic and non-diegetic level select menus, weird typographic choices, syncing animation, sound effects, and music, and little layout errors that add up to bigger problems.

Featuring:
Super Mario 3D World: Bowser’s Fury
Vexx
Opus Magnum
The Witcher 1

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#witcher #bowsersfury #graphicdesign

Side Quests - How To Make A Good Detour

Design Doc 2021-02-15 | Start your next game design project in Milanote: milanote.com/designdoc0221

Side quests are mostly defined by what they aren't, but being optional opens up a lot of interesting design space. Let's talk about side quest design and how video games can make a compelling detour.

Featuring:
CrossCode
Hollow Knight
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Mass Effect 2
Yakuza
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix
FTL
Breath of the Wild
Bug Fables

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#yakuza #majorasmask #masseffect

Collectibles - How To Make Chores Fun In Games

Design Doc 2021-01-15 | Go to http://www.audible.com/designdoc or text DESIGNDOC to 500 500 and start listening today with a 30 day free trial!
At first glance, game collectibles might sound like a chore. In some games, they are. But with the right motivation and tools, you can make them a rewarding, worthwhile pillar of any game. Let’s talk about what you can do to make collectibles worth collecting.

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#mario64 #banjokazooie #gamedesign

Boss Battle Design Vol. 3 - Okami, Sonic Mania, and whats wrong with Zorah Magdaros

Design Doc 2020-12-21 | Support Design Doc on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/designdoc

You can make a good boss fight out of anything, but no matter the subject a great game boss has to respect the player’s time. But how that works in practice can be as varied as the bosses themselves. Today, we’re talking about Orochi, Gachapandora, and Zorah Magdaros and how they manage the player’s time through repetition, controllable difficulty, and spectacle, for better and for worse.

Featuring:
Okami
Sonic Mania
Monster Hunter World

Design Doc on Twitter: twitter.com/Warbot400

#monsterhunter #okami #sonicmania

Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 11 - Tetris, Hyper Light Drifter, and Great Game Animation

Design Doc 2020-11-30 | Go to expressvpn.com/designdoc to sign up and get 3 months free.

The video game graphic design train keeps rolling with the 11th installment of Good Design, Bad Design! Today we talk about how to differentiate foreground and background elements, and then we have a couple segments on the 12 principles of animation and how they relate to game animations.

Featuring:
Part Time UFO
Sonic: Lost World
Tetris Effect
Hyper Light Drifter
A whole lotta games with bad animation

KaptainKristian's great 12 Principles of Animation video:
youtube.com/watch?v=EVQflnGcx4k

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#hyperlightdrifter #TetrisEffect #parttimeufo

What Led Supergiant To Hades? ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2020-10-30 | The first 1,000 people to click the link will get a free trial of Skillshare premium: https://skl.sh/designdoc10201

Have you played Hades yet? I think it’s my game of the year. Supergiant is no stranger to fantastic action games. Hades is the endpoint in a long line: Pyre, Transistor, and Bastion. Hades is an amalgamation of everything they've accomplished - laser-focused and polished to a mirror shine. Let’s talk about the road to Hades, how to refine a game, and how Supergiant turned something good into something great.

This video was sponsored by Skillshare

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#Hades #Bastion #Supergiant

What Makes a Great Hub World? - How Mario 64, Spyro, and Hades Made Theirs ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2020-10-12 | Get Milanote for free: milanote.com/designdoc
Every game needs structure. Something to bind a set of experiences into a cohesive whole. It could just be a menu or a simple world map, but for some games, that structure means an ambitious hub world. Careful though, with high ambition comes high stakes. Let's talk about hub world design, some good and bad attempts at making them, and the factors that can elevate the hub world into its own memorable experience.

Featuring:
Spyro the Dragon
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Super Paper Mario
Hades
Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Super Mario 64
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Galaxy

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#mario64 #spyro #hades

What Makes a Good Level Up System?

Design Doc 2020-09-17 | For a limited time, use the link to get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: https://skl.sh/designdoc09201

There might be nothing more iconic to video games than the phrase 'Level Up'. But for something so broadly used, level up systems are a weird construct. Designing a good one is the difference between a rewarding loop of character improvement and a grind, but it's more complicated than you think. Let's talk about progression, motivation, and what goes into making a level up system worth playing.

We talk in-depth about:
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy XV
Lost Odyssey (go find this, do it now)
Spider-Man
God of War
Castle Crashers
Super Paper Mario
Devil May Cry

This video was sponsored by Skillshare

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#finalfantasy #darksouls #levelup

How Do You Design a Cast of Enemies?

Design Doc 2020-08-24 | The first 1000 people who click the link will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: https://skl.sh/designdoc0820

You could have the ultimate combat system for your game, but what good is it if you've got no one to fight? Constructing a cast of enemies is a tough task. Even great games like Breath of the Wild and Paper Mario: The Origami King haven't nailed it perfectly. You need to carefully balance visual and mechanical design to keep things interesting, and games like Pikmin and the Dragon Quest series have each figured out a way to do that well. Let's talk about how to design a cast of enemies, some problems to avoid, and some opportunities to add flair to make your fights worth fighting.

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This video was sponsored by Skillshare

#dragonquest #papermario #breathofthewild

Good Design, Bad Design X - More of the Best and Worst Graphic Design in Games

Design Doc 2020-07-30 | The first 1000 people who click the link will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: https://skl.sh/designdoc10

It's the 50th episode of Design Doc, and the 10th episode of Good Design, Bad Design! Once again, we're talking about graphic design in games. Today we'll go over a very nice art game, a horrible set of branding missteps, some great UX workarounds to get a graphic style to work well, and two entries from one beloved series - one good and one bad.

Featuring:
Gris
Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack/Pokemon Puzzle League/Planet Puzzle League/I could go on, and that's the problem
The Return of The Obra Dinn
Xenoblade Chronicles X
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

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This video was sponsored by Skillshare

#xenoblade #obradinn #puzzleleague

How Can I Stop Item Hoarding In Games?

Design Doc 2020-06-29 | Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/designdoc and enter promo code DESIGNDOC for 85% off and 3 extra months for free!

Item hoarding is a problem that happens in tons of games across lots of genres, and can cause unnecessary anxiety for players. Not all players are affected the same way, but item hoarding is a problem that designers can address and reduce. Some techniques are simple, some are complicated, and some can cause other knock-on effects down the line. Let's talk about item hoarding in games, and the design choices that you can use to tackle the problem.

Games by order of first appearance
0:19 Persona 4
0:22 Dragon Quest III
0:27 Pokemon Sword & Shield
0:30 Final Fantasy X
0:38 Paper Mario (N64)
0:43 Skyrim
0:45 Fire Emblem: Three Houses
0:50 Animal Crossing New Horizons
0:55 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
0:59 Skies of Arcadia
1:03 Just Cause 2
1:10 Dishonored
1:16 Paper Mario: Sticker Star
1:18 Resident Evil 2 Remake
1:22 Dragon Quest XI
1:29 Enter the Gungeon
2:40 Moonlighter
2:46 Zelda: Breath of The Wild
3:08 Demon's Souls (PS3)
3:13 Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2
3:38 Final Fantasy VII
3:46 Doom 2016
4:00 Final Fantasy IX
6:21 Tales of Vesperia
6:27 Shin Megami Tensei IV
6:46 Resident Evil 4
7:21 Dark Souls 3
11:21 Kingdom Hearts 3
11:25 Terraria
11:38 Monster Hunter World
12:40 Final Fantasy VIII
14:52 Rogue Legacy
14:59 The Binding of Isaac
15:01 Spelunky
15:47 Don't Starve
16:14 Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition

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#finalfantasy #papermario #monsterhunter

Whats the Point of Status Effects? ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2020-05-29 | The first 1000 people who click the link in the description will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: https://skl.sh/designdoc9

Status effects are a staple of game design, but they aren't just for RPGs anymore. They have been added to all kinds of genres. But, why? What makes status effects such a useful tool in games like Persona and Monster Hunter, but also games like Street Fighter and Left 4 Dead? Let's look through the categories of status effects, some common pitfalls, and talk about some tips, tricks, and points that can help you make the most out of your status effects.

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This video was sponsored by Skillshare.

#persona #monsterhunter #finalfantasy

Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 9 - The Graphic Design of Animal Crossing, Resident Evil 2, and More

Design Doc 2020-04-30 | Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/designdoc Enter promo code DESIGNDOC for 83% off and 1 extra month for free!

It’s Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 9! Let’s talk about some great and some terrible graphic design in video games. Today we’re talking about bad lobby UX, UI improvements in a remake, alert fatigue and interruptions, an overhaul of a map in a different remake, and we'll check in with Tom Nook about everyone’s favorite bad menu system in a good game.

Support Design Doc on Patreon to get early access to new episodes, and hear a behind the scenes podcast! Go Here: patreon.com/designdoc

This episode contains:
Guilty Gear Strive
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
De Blob
Resident Evil 2 Remake
Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Twitter: twitter.com/Warbot400

#animalcrossing #re2 #zelda

What Makes a Good New Game Plus?

Design Doc 2020-04-09 | The first 1000 people who click the link in the description will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: https://skl.sh/designdoc8

From Chrono Trigger to Nier Automata, from Zelda to Undertale, New Game Plus has extended the life of games for decades. But that same label can mean so many different things. Let's unpack four categories of what goes into a New Game Plus and see how developers put their own unique spin on the same postgame concept.

This video was sponsored by Skillshare

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---
Very light spoiler timestamps!
Games Discussed in Detail
Resident Evil 4: 3:30 - 4:04
Dead Space: 4:04 - 4:17
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: 4:17 - 4:49
Persona 5 (Vanilla): 4:49 - 5:55
Ratchet & Clank Series: 6:42 - 7:22
Dark Souls 1 & 2: 7:22 - 8:38
Code Vein: 8:38 - 8:52
Batman Arkham City: 8:52 - 9:19
The Legend of Zelda (NES): 9:36 - 9:44
Zelda: Ocarina of Time: 9:44 - 10:09
Super Mario Galaxy: 10:10 - 10:32
Donkey Kong Country Returns/Tropical Freeze: 10:32 - 11:01
Devil May Cry V (Potential Spoilers): 11:46 - 14:01
Borderlands: 14:01 - 14:21
The Legend of Korra (Platinum Games): 14:21 - 15:11
Dead Rising: 15:12 - 15:41
Chrono Trigger (Potential Spoilers): 16:16 - 16:55
Chrono Cross: 16:55 - 17:19
Resident Evil 2: 17:19 - 17:59
Nier Gestalt (Potential Spoilers): 17:59 - 18:20
Nier Automata (Potential Spoilers): 18:20 - 19:15
Undertale (Potential Spoilers): 19:15 - 19:54
Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Seasons: 19:54 - 20:34
The Quiet Man: 20:44 - 21:00

#nierautomata #undertale #devilmaycry

What Makes For A Better Mario Boss?

Design Doc 2020-03-12 | The first 500 people who click the link will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: https://skl.sh/designdoc7

It would've been so easy. Super Mario Odyssey is yet another 3D Mario game, and its design could've stayed in the series' comfort zone. But Odyssey's boss design and environmental design is so much more than that. Everything is in its place. Knucklotec in the Sand Kingdom, the Mechawiggler in New Donk City, and the Ruined Dragon in the Ruined Kingdom pair the bosses with their levels in a way the series has rarely done. Let's hear from Mario Odyssey's developers about their design process, and take a trip through some of my favorite bosses and areas of Super Mario Odyssey.

This video was sponsored by Skillshare.

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What Makes A Game Replayable?

Design Doc 2020-02-20 | Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/designdoc - Enter promo code DESIGNDOC for 83% off and 1 extra month for free!
It’s tough to make a game worth playing. But what about one worth playing AGAIN? That’s even tougher. Let’s talk about replayability. We’ll go through a ton of examples in three broad categories about how games add replay value, and we’ll also talk about what to avoid if you want to make a game as replayable as possible.

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#mariomaker #hearthstone #hades

Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 8 - Analyzing the Graphic Design in Cuphead, Jackbox, and More

Design Doc 2020-01-23 | Sponsored by Audible! Go to http://www.audible.com/designdoc or text 'DESIGNDOC' to 500 500 to get one free audiobook, 2 free Audible originals and a 30-day free trial.

It's time for Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 8! We're talking about four more video games with great and terrible graphic design. Today we'll talk about color contrast, anticipation in animation, inclusive design, and UI efficiency.

Support Design Doc on Patreon to get early access to new episodes, and hear a behind the scenes podcast! Go Here: patreon.com/designdoc

This episode contains:
Jackbox Party Pack
Xenoblade Chronicles
Cuphead
Chime Sharp

Twitter: twitter.com/Warbot400

#cuphead #xenobladechronicles #jackbox

Design Docs Favorite Games of the Year - Fire Emblem, Ring Fit Adventure, and Yooka-Laylee

Design Doc 2020-01-03 | Click here to explore your creativity and get 2 free months of Premium Membership: https://skl.sh/designdoc6

We've talked about a lot of games in 2019, but not all of them. So to fix that, let's bring out the Bonus Bag! Here's 3 more of our favorites from the past year - Ring Fit Adventure, Yooka-Laylee, and the Impossible Lair, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses - that we never got to feature in another episode.

Happy New Year!

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#fireemblem #ringfitadventure #yookalaylee

Designing Modern Adventure Games - Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, and More ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2019-12-12 | Thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video! Sign up and get 2 months of Skillshare free by signing up here: https://skl.sh/designdoc5

The adventure game market collapsed in the late 90s, but that's not the end of the story. In Europe and Japan, the genre was changing, evolving with the times, and about to hit on something big. Let's talk about how Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Professor Layton, and the Zero Escape trilogy helped lead Japanese Visual Novels to popularity in the West, how Quantic Dream's Omikron and Indigo Prophecy helped bring cinematic adventure games from France, and how the American adventure game market picked up the pieces with Nancy Drew, Indie developers, Kickstarter, Double Fine, and a little company called Telltale.

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#danganronpa #aceattorney #telltale

Designing Classic Adventure Games - Kings Quest, Myst, Monkey Island and More

Design Doc 2019-11-14 | Thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video! Sign up and get 2 months of Skillshare free by signing up here: https://skl.sh/designdoc4

There's maybe no genre with a more interesting history than the adventure game. Today we'll talk about the design of classic adventure games. From their start as text adventures. Through Sierra, Ken and Roberta Williams and King's Quest. Modernized with LucasArts, Ron Gilbert, Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and Grim Fandango. Then brought to the masses with Cyan and Myst, and a whole lot of copycats. Let's see what made adventure games so popular in the 80s and 90s and what made the genre fade away to almost nothing.

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#adventuregame #monkeyisland #myst

Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 7 - The Best and Worst of Graphic and UI Design in Games ~ Design Doc

Design Doc 2019-10-24 | Learn a lot! Sign up for 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: https://skl.sh/designdoc3 . Thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video.

Good Design, Bad Design Vol. 7 is here, with another group of video games with great and terrible graphic design. Learn about conveyance, affordances, good looking UI improvements in a series that could use some more, and how Queen Latifah should be the narrator for more things. And there are JoJos.

This episode contains:
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Rayman
Celeste
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven
Monster Hunter: World (Vanilla)

Patreon: patreon.com/designdoc
Twitter: twitter.com/Warbot400

#monsterhunterworld #jojo #celeste