About the course

"Game Design Essentials" is a course tailored to meet the specific needs of game designers and is grounded in best practices for PC and mobile game development. This course is suitable for a wide audience, ranging from junior and mid-level game designers to indie developers.

"Game Design Essentials" doesn't delve into basic or abstract discussions about the profession or skills required for game designers. Instead, it focuses on the daily routines and the most popular and valuable tasks in game design.  The author presents both theoretical concepts and practical cases that take a unique approach to the work of game design. You can expect materials covering game cycles and mechanics, economy design, battle systems, character progression, player retention, and engagement.

What sets this course apart is its emphasis on the technical tools and mathematics required to tackle complex game design tasks. The author will also introduce the tools and approaches for conducting market and product analyses.

It's not just about knowing how to develop games; understanding the target audience is equally crucial. After all, the ultimate goal is to craft games that fulfill the dreams of the players, not just the dreams of the game designer.

Course Outline

Lesson I. Game mechanics

• Basic concepts and structure of gameplay
• Game Design toolkit
• Examples of game loops
• Design techniques for mechanics and loops
• Examples of designing cycles and mechanics:

- Premium PC 
- F2P Mobile & Browser 
- Hyper-casual
- Board games

• Patterns of game mechanics
• Quality assessment of designed mechanics

Lesson 2. Game economy

• Designing the economy of Premium PC / console games
• Designing F2P game economy and monetisation
• Designing game economy in different genres:

- Mobile survival games 
- PC strategies

• Analysing the efficiency of game economy

Lesson 3. Combat system design

• Principles of combat system design
• Mathematical models of combat systems
• Standard feature models
• Characterisation and Capability Conversion
• Combat system as designed for Tower Defence

Lesson 4. Exploring Participants' Experiences using Case Study. Q&A session

Lesson 5.Development and implementation of content

• Methodology of technical game design

• Content in F2P games (e.g. lootboxes)

• Content in Premium PC / console games

• Technical tools of content creation in the engine:

  - Scripting languages: JSON, XML, etc. 
  - Visual programming tools: Unity Bolt, Unreal Blueprints

Lesson 6. Game balance

• Types of balancing in games 
• Content balancing algorithm 
• Complexity curve 
• Use of statistics and analytics in game balancing 
• Situational balancing

Lesson 7. Creating progressions

• Purpose and logic of creating progression and development 
• Algorithm for creating player progression
• Progression, as done in F2P Mobile game
• Basic principle of progression in F2P games 
• Progression in Premium games

Lesson 8. Using Case Studies to Investigate Participants' Experiences: Q&A Session

Lesson 9.  Analytics for game designers

• Basic metrics of Premium PC games

• Product metrics for F2P games 

• Examples of reports and working with analytics 

• Market and competitor analysis:

  - PC and consoles 
  - Mobile 

• Application of market analysis results

Lesson 10. Narrative design

• Narrative design tools
• Algorithm for creating a story 
• Working with characters
• Narrative without a story 
• Features of narrative design for mobile games

Course Details

• Two months of immersive, hands-on learning
• Weekly live online webinars
• Access to a dedicated course chat room for sharing experiences and networking
• Ongoing interaction with the author
• Comprehensive supplementary course materials, including texts, templates, spreadsheets, and more

Course Language

Russian