| The Designer's Notebook is a (mostly) regular column I write for the Gamasutra developers' webzine, run by the same people who produce the incomparable Game Developers' Conference. Below is an index to all my columns to date, in chronological order. To read an article where it was first published, click on the little icon to the left of the title. If the title itself is in blue, it links to a local copy here on my web site. For my online articles that didn't appear under the Designer's Notebook name, click here. Designer's Notebook ColumnsNovember 28, 1997 | | Dr. Livingstone, I Presume? |
December 5, 1997 | | Why "On-Line Community" is an Oxymoron, or, Flatfoots on the Infobeat! | January 16, 1998 | | Not Just Another Scary Face | February 13, 1998
| | Games for Girls? Eeeeewwww!
| | | [ Farsi (Persian) (PDF) ] | March 13, 1998 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! | | | [ Français ] [ Português ] | April 24, 1998 | | Implementing God in the On-Line World | May 22, 1998 | | Gulliver and Game Design
| June 19, 1998 | | Cartographic Cartwheels | July 17, 1998 | | In Memoriam: Danielle Berry | August 14, 1998 | | The Virtual Reality Gorilla-Rhino Test
| October 16, 1998 | | A Symmetry Lesson | | | [ Français ] | November 20, 1998 |
| Creating Opponents For Wargames | December 11, 1998 | | How to Get Started in the Game Industry, Part 1
| December 18, 1998 | | How to Get Started in the Game Industry, Part 2 | January 15, 1999 | | Interstate'76 and the Principle of Harmony | February 12, 1999 | | How to Be Weird
| March 12, 1999 | | Let's Put the Magic Back in Magic | | | [ Français ] | April 9, 1999 |
| Shut Up And Design! | | | [ Français ] | May 28, 1999 | | The Slippery Slope of Advertising | June 18, 1999 | | Tolkien, Beethoven, Vision | | | [ Français ] | July 16, 1999 | | Simplification | | | [ Français ] | August 20, 1999 |
| Reflections on the Colorado School Massacre | September 24, 1999 | | Designing and Developing Sports Games |
October 22, 1999 | | I Can't Keep Up! | November 9, 1999 | | It's Time to Bring Back Adventure Games | | | [ Français ] | December 29, 1999 | | Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers | | | [ Français ] | January 26, 2000 | | Letter from a Dungeon | February 29, 2000 | | Some Thoughts on Archaic Language | March 31, 2000 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! II | | | [ Français ] | May 19, 2000 | | Death (and Planescape: Torment) | | | [ Français ] | July 6, 2000 | | Breaking the Rules | | | [ Français ] | August 1, 2000 | | Casual versus Core | September 15, 2000 | | Sex in Computer Games, part 1: Seduction | October 5, 2000 | | Sex in Computer Games, part 2: Explicit Sex |
November 21, 2000 | | Sex in Computer Games, part 3: Dramatic Signficance | December 22, 2000 | | Designing Need-Based AI for Virtual Gorillas | February 2, 2001 | | Dogma 2001: A Challenge to Game Designers
| April 9, 2001 | | Brian Moriarty on Text RPGs and Skotos Tech | May 21, 2001 | | Replayability, part 1: Narrative | July 3, 2001 | | Replayability, part 2: Game Mechanics
| August 8, 2001 | | My "Next" Games: Families, Psychology, and Murder | October 19, 2001 | | The Day the "Fun" Became Real | January 7, 2002 | | Balancing Games with Positive Feedback
| | | [ Français ] | February 8, 2002 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! III
| | | [ Français ] | May 31, 2002 | | Technology Inspires Creativity: Indie Game Jam Inverts Dogma 2001!
| July 27, 2002 | | Stop Calling Games "Addictive"! | October 9, 2002 | | The Role of Architecture in Videogames | November 8, 2002
| | The Designer's Notebook Turns Five: A Look Back | January 27, 2003 |
| What Kind of Designer Are You? | April 1, 2003 | | More Sex(es) in Computer Games | April 30, 2003 | | Defining the Physical Dimension of a Game Setting | May 23, 2003 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! IV | | | [ Français ] |
July 2, 2003 | | In the Beginning Was the Word | August 6, 2003 | | Tuning Puzzle Games for Non-Puzzle Gamers | August 27, 2003 | | Not Just Rappers and Athletes: Minorities in Video Games | October 22, 2003 | | Hardware Designers: Talk to Us! | December 2, 2003
| | Inside a Game Design Company | January 16, 2004 | |
What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of NPCs? | February 20, 2004 | | Random Thoughts on Mobile Games | April 2, 2004 | | The Best of the Game Design Workshops | May 10, 2004 | | Designing with Gameplay Modes and Flowboards | June 11, 2004 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! V | | | [ Français ] | July 9, 2004 | | Postmodernism and the Three Types of Immersion | August 6, 2004 | | Kicking Butt by the Numbers: Lanchester's Laws | September 15, 2004 | | A Perfect Short Game | October 18, 2004
| | The Perils of Bottom-Up Game Design | November 15, 2004 | | Dramatic Novelty in Games and Stories | December 22, 2004 | | How Many Endings Does a Game Need? | January 26, 2005 | | Educational Games Don't Have to Stink! | February 23, 2005 | | What's On the Designer's Bookshelf?
| April 1, 2005 | | The Act - Emotion Control With Single-Knob Gameplay
| April 29, 2005 | | A Few Remarks on Creative Play | June 3, 2005 | |
Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! VI | June 28, 2005 | | A Letter from the Cockpit | July 28, 2005 | | You Must Play Façade, Now! | August 26, 2005 | | The Bill of Players' Rights | October 3, 2005 | | The Unique Design Challenge of Pinball Simulations
| November 28, 2005 | | The End of Copyright
| | | [ Chinese (PDF) ] | January 30, 2006 | | Multi-Level Gameplay | March 2, 2006 | | Strange Agents are Profiling Our Games! | April 21, 2006 | | Cheer Up! Video Games are in Great Shape | June 1, 2006 | | Introducing Ken Perlin's Law | July 10, 2006 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! VII | | | [ Français ]
| August 7, 2006 | | Where's Our Merchant Ivory? | September 29, 2006 |
| Revenge of the Highbrow Games | November 1, 2006 | | Employees Leaving? Deal With It! | December 22, 2006 | | PS3 vs. Wii -- The Designer's Perspective | | | [ Farsi (Persian) (PDF) ] | January 31, 2007 | | Asymmetric Peacefare | May 1, 2007 | | Why Action Games Suck (And What to Do About It) | June 6, 2007 | | Is It Time To Dump EA? |
July 17, 2007 | | Why Design Documents Matter
| | | [ Français ] [ Polski ] | September 4, 2007
| | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! VIII
| November 26, 2007 | | Ten Years of Great Games | March 5, 2008 | | Damn All Gameplay Patents! | May 14, 2008 | | Difficulty Modes and Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment | August 19, 2008 | | The Tao of Game Design |
October 9, 2008 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! IX
| November 25, 2008 | | The Moral Panic Isn't Over Yet | January 27, 2009 | |
Numbers, Emotions, and Behavior | April 14, 2009 | | The Genre That Would Not Die! | July 9, 2009 | | Sorting Out the Genre Muddle | September 29, 2009 | | How to Write Sports Commentary | December 7, 2009 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! X
| April 8, 2010 | | Selling Hate and Humiliation | May 12, 2010 | | Preventing the Downward Spiral | August 25, 2010 | | Sandbox Storytelling | October 28, 2010 | | Don't March, Dance! | December 2, 2010 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! XI | April 13, 2011 |
| Introducing The Blitz Online | |
June 14, 2011 | | Eight Ways to Make a Bad Tutorial
| | | [ Français ] | October 25, 2011 | | Passion versus Professionalism | December 26, 2011 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! XII
| February 28, 2012 | | How Should We Judge a Game Jam? | June 5, 2012 | | Triple-A Games for Women? Seriously? | July 26, 2012 | | A Call to Arms for Decent Men
| August 16, 2012 | | Machinations, A New Way to Design Game Mechanics | December 21, 2012 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! XIII | April 8, 2013 | | Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers, Resolved | August 23, 2013 | | We Don't Need the Haters (And I Can Prove It)
| December 21, 2013 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! XIV | December 22, 2014 | | Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! XV |
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