As 2015 draws to a close, let's take a look back at the great game development how-to tutorials and articles our wonderful instructor team wrote this year! There were high-level posts on game design and level design, beginners' guides to shaders and more advanced guides to pathfinding, inspirational posts to dip in to the next time you're coming up with ideas for a new game, and plenty more...
Level Design
I'm really excited to have Mike Stout and Patrick Holleman writing for us. Mike's a video game designer whose major credits include games in the Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and Skylanders series; Patrick runs The Game Design Forum and has spent hundreds of hours reverse-engineering the design of hit games to see how they tick. Each is using their considerable knowledge and experience to teach valuable level design concepts.
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Game DesignLevel Design: Views and Vistas![]()
Level DesignHow to Design Levels With the "Super Mario World Method"![]()
Level DesignThe Super Mario World Method: Using Evolutions and Expansions
Shaders
Shaders are useful in both 2D and 3D games, and in certain projects you'd have a hard time avoiding coding them at all. But they can often feel like a dark art, since coding them effectively requires a different mindset. Omar's excellent three-part Beginner's Guide demystifies them, making it easy to grasp the basics right away, and David and Daniel's tutorials break down more advanced uses of them in action.
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ShadersA Beginner's Guide to Coding Graphics Shaders![]()
ShadersA Beginner's Guide to Coding Graphics Shaders: Part 2![]()
WebGLBuilding Shaders With Babylon.js and WebGL: Theory and Examples![]()
ShadersA Beginner's Guide to Coding Graphics Shaders: Part 3![]()
ShadersHow to Use a Shader to Dynamically Swap a Sprite's Colors
Pathfinding for 2D Platformers
Most game developers who have needed to calculate a path from A to B will be familiar with the A* pathfinding algorithm. (If you aren't, check out Patrick Lester's great introduction.) In this series, Daniel Branicki builds on A* to create a pathfinder that works for grid-based 2D platformers, and then adds a bunch of extra features.
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PathfindingHow to Adapt A* Pathfinding to a 2D Grid-Based Platformer: Theory![]()
PathfindingHow to Adapt A* Pathfinding to a 2D Grid-Based Platformer: Implementation![]()
PathfindingA* Pathfinding for 2D Grid-Based Platformers: Adding One-Way Platforms![]()
PathfindingA* Pathfinding for 2D Grid-Based Platformers: Different Character Sizes![]()
PathfindingA* Pathfinding for 2D Grid-Based Platformers: Making a Bot Follow the Path![]()
PathfindingA* Pathfinding for 2D Grid-Based Platformers: Ledge Grabbing
Inspiration for Your Next Game's Theme and Genre
Next time you're scratching your head trying to come up with an idea for a new game (whether it's a big project or a weekend game jam), get inspiration from one of Matthias's round-ups of underused game genres and themes.
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Game Design9 Rare and Underused Game Genres Ready to Explore![]()
Game Design8 Classic Game Genres Ready to Explore Again![]()
Game Design9 More Inexplicably Underused Game Genres for Your Next Project![]()
Game DesignStuck for Your Next Game's Theme? Try These 6 Ideas
Creating a Game Using Steering Behaviours
Fernando has been writing tutorials about steering behaviours since 2012. Last year, he showed how we can use them to power the AI for a hockey game; this year, he broke down the game mechanics themselves, and gave us a revealing post-mortem about the whole project.
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artificial intelligenceCreate a Hockey Game AI Using Steering Behaviors: Game Mechanics![]()
Post MortemHockeynamite - Development Post Mortem
Learning a New Language or Platform
We have, admittedly, slowed down our efforts to collate the best resources for learning the many game development engines out there—perhaps this deserves renewed focus in 2016—but returning instructors Lee and Aditya did cover JavaFX and the very popular Pygame.
Game Design
While we've focused more on longer series of posts when it comes to coding games, for our game design posts we've mainly gone for one-off articles.
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Game Mechanics5 Approaches to Crafting Systems in Games (and Where to Use Them)![]()
Game Design4 Ways to Teach Your Players How to Play Your Game![]()
Game DesignLet Them Play: Don’t Lock Your Players Out of Playing![]()
Game DesignMinimalism in Game Design: Examples, Tips, and Ideas![]()
artificial intelligenceMaking AI Fun: When Good Enough is Good Enough![]()
Game DesignThe Key Design Elements of Roguelikes![]()
Game DesignA Mini-Post on Post-Match Mini-Achievements![]()
Game DesignNumbers Getting Bigger: What Are Incremental Games, and Why Are They Fun?![]()
Game MechanicsHow to Incorporate Satisfying Death Mechanics Into Your Game![]()
Game DesignWhat Makes Games Funny? A Look at Comedy and Humour in Video Games
Miscellaneous Tips
These tutorials don't fit in any other category, but they're full of valuable advice nonetheless!
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MonetizationHow, Where, and When to Add Video Ads to Your Mobile Games![]()
Game DesignBringing Your Game to Life in 10 Simple Steps![]()
Project ManagementHow (and Why) to Write a Great Game Design Document![]()
Game Audio4 Simple Techniques for Optimizing Your Game's Audio![]()
MarketingOpen Graph Stories: The Secret to Increasing Virality in Facebook Games![]()
FundingHow to Fund Your Games By Creating and Selling Game Assets
See You In 2016!
In 2016 you can count on more level design tutorials from Mike and Patrick, more maths tutorials from Fernando, more shader tutorials from Omar, and more platformer tutorials from Daniel—and that's just what our regulars have lined up already! What would you like to see on the site? Have a great new year!
References
- Preview image: Calendar by Laurent Patain from the Noun Project
