Dive into game design with our friendly and straightforward course! Perfect for beginners looking to create fun experiences.
This course is your go-to for learning game design in a super easy way! You’ll get practical advice, frameworks, and insights into what makes a game great. Perfect for newbies wanting to dive in!
The process of specifying and modifying the way the game plays: not programming, art, marketing, licensing, sound, etc.
[Note: This course exists because my original course "Learning Game Design: as a job or a hobby" more than doubled in size over time, becoming much too large for Udemy's new structure. That massive course is no longer available, instead there is "Learning Game Design" parts 1 and 2. As with that original course, this one is not subject to massive discounts, which only serve to offend those who paid full or near-full price.]
This pair of "Learning Game Design" courses is designed for people who want to design
games - video or tabletop - but lack information about what is really
involved and how to go about it. It's not rocket science, but
commercial design is a JOB - one that cannot be done by rote, there is
no "Easy Button". I'm not here to encourage you, or entice you, or entertain you,
I'm here to inform you. I assume you have the motivation to learn how
to design games, you just need to know how. And that means you need to
do it from start to finish, to complete games rather than merely start
them.
We'll discuss the
process of game design, the possible structures in games, the best way
to start learning game design, what makes a game good (there's a great
variety of opinion about this), ways to provide a framework for your
design efforts, ways to keep records of your work, software to help you
learn. Many aspiring game designers have crippling misconceptions (such
as the notion that it's all about a great idea, or that everyone likes the same games they do), and I'll try to clear those out of
your way.
This is not a "comprehensive" series because there's no such thing. It is a pair of courses about
learning game design. Learning is a process that goes on throughout a game
designer's career, and it starts here.
This class will never be offered for free or at very deep discounts. That is disrespectful to me and to the students who pay full price or near it.
Keep in mind, this course is not about game development, that is, not about programming, art, sound, and so forth. It is only about game design.Most so-called "game design" courses are actually about game development, with just a little game design involved.
Following are comments from people who took the original course "Learning Game Design: as a job or a hobby":
Great course! Good for the starter like myself :)
Currently I follow this course (at 75% so far) and its a great course for beginner game designers like myself. The course is not a 1 click button and after your a game designer no (please send message if you found that course btw) but it gives a good frame work, hand outs, ideas and background about both video games and tabletop games.
So if you wanted to start with game design this is a great first step.
The teacher is clear and good to follow ( I am a student from The Netherlands and got no problem following this course). Also the course got some assignment I strongly recommend doing them I finaly found out why I Hate Monopoly :)
Cheers all hope this was usefull,
Jimmy
==
Mark Frazier
President
Designs In Creative Entertainment, LLC.
An ideal introduction to game design
Dr. Pulsipher distills the critical elements of designing games into manageable chunks. This is an ideal course to take if you are interested in designing games, regardless of whether you intend to pursue it as a career or not.
Much of the material covers the specifics of the process of game design, but there is alot of prime advice to be had in the lectures on creating the right conditions for quality feedback and on understanding the realities of the publishing business.
A must-have certification if you're serious about designing, and I'd say, even publishing games!
==
Pull Back the Curtain on the Game Design Process
I know that in the past there's only been a couple of times that I managed to blunder into some sort of prototype, but I had no clue as to what I was doing that was different than usual. Well... the material in this course nails down precisely what to do to get over that initial hump. It can save you from countless false starts and dumb ideas. And unlike other commentary on the design process, Dr. Pulsipher provides a whole menu of things that you can do in each phase of development.
This material reveals more of the dials and knobs of gaming than I even knew existed. And being aware of these things was enough to shift me from having an occasional promising idea to having more ideas than I know what to do with. Even just playing new games now, I cannot help but see "behind the curtain" and into the dilemmas the designers were facing. If you care about game design and actually do the work that this course entails, you are in for a profoundly illuminating experience.
Learn the fundamentals of game design - any kind of game
Learn to avoid false assumptions that many beginning designers believe
Learn a process and structure for designing games
10 Lectures
13 Lectures
12 Lectures
22 Lectures
23 Lectures
13 Lectures
13 Lectures
Dr. Lewis Pulsipher (Wikipedia: "Lewis Pulsipher"; "Britannia (board game)"; "Archomental" ) is the designer of approaching a dozen commercially published boardgames. His game "Britannia" is described in an Armchair General review "as one of the great titles in the world of games." Britannia was also one of the 100 games highlighted in the book "Hobby Games: the 100 Best". He...
All respect to the instructor's knowledge and experience, but far too many lectures spent too much time on either A.) Rehashing the instructor's credentials or B.) Why young people in particular are misguided/aren't actually interested in the design of games. I do think the latter is an important part to cover, but I would think that many people who choose to take this course have some idea about what they're getting into as is, and don't need the constant "are you sure you aren't a fiction writer"-type questions beyond the intro section. Because of this, I'm very reluctant to take the second part of this course. I did adore the assignments, though; especially the Stratego one.
No nonsense approach in teaching game design.
A good sharing of experience from the authorized author of popular tabletop games. Really useful thoughts about the game design industry, helpful advises. But too much fillers and unnecessary topics in my opinion.
This is the first part of a what was originally a very large single course on Learning Game Design that got broken into two pieces. Some of the videos mention the original larger course, and there might be some confusion at times because of that. Ideally you should take both of these courses in order, but you can skip around bit if you want to focus on particular topics, but you will probably get the most out of it by doing it in order. If you are totally new to the idea of doing game design, I would suggest starting with Dr. Pulsipher's more introductory course: Brief Introduction To Game Design. There is occasional repetition across some of Dr. Pulsipher's eleven courses, but for the most part each course has plenty of new content. Note that all of his Udemy courses have coupon codes listed on his own website (just Google pulsiphergames) ... and a couple of his courses are completely free this way! I have finished nine of his eleven courses so far, and I look forward to any additional courses he may publish in the future.
Why should you take this course (these courses)? Well, the main reason is that Dr. Pulsipher is an experienced game designer that has a wealth of real-world experience and knowledge to share. Some of his game credits include Britannia, Valley of the Four Winds, Dragon Rage, and Sea Kings -- with a couple more hopefully coming out this year. Note that Dr. P is not an entertainer ... he is an educator. So don't expect fanfare, rah-rah-rah, fancy animations, gimmicky presentations, or promises of how to get rich quick by designing games. He will tell you about success stories in the industry like Reiner Knizia, but will warn you that you have a greater chance of winning the lottery than being the next Reiner Knizia. Don't be put off by these cold hard facts ... Dr. Pulsipher tells you ... do game design because you love it, not because you have a pipe dream that you might get rich. Do it because you love it! (Dr. P actually has an entire course called the Joys of Game Design.) So if you want to learn about the nuts and bolts of the actual process of game design, take these courses. Ask questions within the course Q&A section ... he actually answers! To supplement the courses you can read his book, watch his Game Design channel on YouTube, and take advantage of the wealth of knowledge & experience that he has to offer. And in the end, the way you learn game design the most is by actually doing it. Dr. P can't do that for you. You have to do it yourself. As he says (borrowing from Nike): Just do it! Make complete games.
So far, having completed the first part, it should probably be titled "talking about learning game design"...There's a lot of talk about what game design 'is not' and how much work there is and if I were to actually make a game, that it would not be good - that is all understandable (i have no problem with that, in fact, I appreciate the realistic approach), however, that could have been all completed in a couple slides...not hours upon hours of the same information.
This felt like sitting in a forum or panel about a guy and his experiences and not in a course learning about game design.
For a course labeled "learning game design", I would expect that I would actually learn how to design a game. Only a few items I felt were useful and that was almost halfway through (The 9 structures, distinct questions on the type of game, as well as the spectrum questions - but that was, what? 6 slides out of 8 hours?) The idea of the mind mapping - useful. I get it, write my ideas down, don't lose them and so forth - useful tips within the process, but not game design. The design pyramid - useful...now, put it into action - show examples. These small snippets could have been condensed into an hour of the course and placed in the beginning after we learn about what game design is not.
With the restrictions of online asynchronous learning, learners need more examples of what you're talking about (whether they come from you or other sources (online or whatever).
Your document ("Starting-a-game-design-for-Origins11") had some quite useful information in it...why was this one of the last items given at the end of Part I?
This 'course' has useful information in it, to be sure - it just feels disorganized and long-winded as a course.
Put the building blocks (core ideas/concepts) up front, strip away a lot of the less-useful repetition ("it's hard work and the game most likely won't be good" - mention it up front, maybe reiterate it after a milestone, then reinforce at the end with some encouragement), focus on the structure and core of building a game, and go from there.
Based on the description, I was expecting more constructive guidance before section 34. Up to this section, the entire discussion has been around setting expectations of designers. The presumption by the instructor is that most people think it will be easy, and so far has spent a lot of time pointing out the reasons whey it's not going to be easy, rather than creating any artefacts upon which to build any game design skills. I'm keen to see when this will happen. So, I will continue on. It's kind of like the professor is creating a scupture... He's chipping away all the stuff that "isn't game design", and it's taking a long time.
Cuesta mucho mantener la atencion del curso, la estetica de las diapositivas es muy pobre y el ritmo es un tanto lento.
Absolutely loved the course. A lot of the information is common sense, but common sense is in short supply now a days. The instructor is extremely knowledgeable and presents the material in a easy to understand way. Keep in mind that the course is structured in a lecture format with static slides, no fancy graphics, animations and examples are described only. A few assignments throughout the course but if I have one suggestion would be to have more practical exercises combined with instructor feedback and criticism. Overall very pleased, and look forward to doing part 2 of this lecture.
I did a lot of research about game design and development courses before beginning this, creating an extensive curriculum for myself mainly because one doesn't really exist. For anyone who is seriously interested in learning the nuts and bolts of game design (NOT development, there's a huge difference), this, the first part of a two part course, is a treasure trove of information. Dr. Pulsipher speaks and instructs with a very to-the-point, no BS attitude and I found myself retaining much of the info because of this. If you're looking for a "do THIS and you'll be a millionaire in no time!!!" course, steer clear and seek help from a professional because designing games requires a metric ton of actual hard work. On that note, I rated the course a little less than 5 stars because I would have liked more hands-on assignments to practice some of these techniques (although, another online course I'm taking in conjunction with this one does give many practice assignments so I don't really feel like I'm missing out on anything). After I give some more serious thought to my game ideas, I'll be moving on to part 2. For the price, this is well worth it.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Alan M.
The academic approach taken towards this course is something of my interest. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.