A curated collection of game design resources for designers, developers, students, and anyone interested in creating better games.
The goal of this repository is to gather high-quality resources in a single place, including books, articles, talks, tools, research papers, templates, communities, and more.
- Fundamentals of Game Design — Ernest Adams (2010). The most widely cited reference in design courses, covering everything from initial concept to final balancing.
- Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design — Ernest Adams & Joris Dormans (2012). How to model and visualize a game's internal economy before writing a single line of code.
- A Game Design Vocabulary — Anna Anthropy & Naomi Clark (2014). Proposes a shared language for talking about design: verbs, challenges, and feedback loops.
- Patterns in Game Design — Staffan Björk & Jussi Holopainen (2005). A catalog of reusable gameplay patterns that cut across genres.
- Challenges for Game Designers — Brenda Brathwaite & Ian Schreiber (2009). Non-digital exercises to train your design judgment.
- Game Design Theory — Keith Burgun (2012). An attempt to formally define what separates a game from other interactive systems.
- Designing Virtual Worlds — Richard Bartle (2003). A historical reference on persistent world design, from MUDs to MMORPGs.
- Level Design: In Pursuit of Better Levels — Tychobolt. A free ebook focused on the level planning process, including multiplayer map design.
- A Practical Guide to Level Design — Benjamin Bauer (2023). Written from AAA experience, covering both production and the soft skills the role demands.
- Level Design for Games: Creating Compelling Experiences — Phil Co (2004). A classic guide walking through the full process, from preproduction to a finished level.
- Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames — Chris Bateman (ed.) (2021). A collection of professional game writers on nonlinear narrative and structure.
- Storytelling for Virtual Reality — John Bucher (2017). How to adapt classical narrative structure to immersive spaces.
- Game Development and Production — Erik Bethke (2003). Team management, task tracking, and technical production documentation.
- Extreme Programming Explained — Kent Beck & Cynthia Andres (2004). The foundation of agile development, applicable to creative production teams.
- Managing Virtual Teams — M. Katherine Brown et al. (2007). Communication and collaboration tools for distributed teams.
- Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature — Espen Aarseth (1997). A foundational text of game studies on ergodic literature.
- How to Talk About Videogames — Ian Bogost (2015). Game criticism beyond the language of film.
- Persuasive Games — Ian Bogost (2007). How games argue through their rules, not just their narrative.
- Rise of the Videogame Zinesters — Anna Anthropy (2012). A manifesto on game design outside the traditional industry.
- Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter — Tom Bissell (2010). A personal essay on why video games matter as an art form.
- One-Page Designs — Stone Librande (GDC 2010). Why one-page designs beat sprawling GDDs and wikis for clarity and speed of iteration.
- Designing Games for Designers — Stone Librande (GDC). A follow-up exploring how visual, game-like documentation improves communication across teams.
- Narrative Legos — Ken Levine (GDC 2014). The BioShock creator's pitch for modular, player-driven narrative systems.
- Designing Journey — Jenova Chen (GDC 2013). How thatgamecompany approached emotion-first design in Journey.
- Making Her Story – Telling a Story Using the Player's Imagination — Sam Barlow (GDC). How Her Story let players reconstruct a narrative through their own investigative choices.
- Level Design in a Day: Decisions That Matter — Matthias Worch (GDC 2014). Designing meaningful choice into level and game structure.
- Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers — Itay Keren (GDC 2015). A breakdown of camera techniques used across classic side-scrolling games.
- A Theory of Fun, 10 Years Later — Raph Koster (GDC 2012). Revisiting the core ideas behind A Theory of Fun for Game Design a decade on.
- Attention, Not Immersion — Richard Lemarchand (GDC 2012). Using psychology and playtesting to improve player engagement, the Uncharted way.
- How to Make Your Game Just Completely Hilarious — William Pugh (GDC 2015). The Stanley Parable co-creator on writing comedy for games.
- Classic Game Postmortem: Myst — Robyn Miller (GDC 2013). The decisions and constraints that shaped one of the best-selling PC games of its era.
- Fundamental Conflicts in Contemporary Game Design — Jonathan Blow (MIGS 2008). A critical look at tension between commercial pressures and meaningful design.
- How to Make a Professional Game Design Document (GDD) — Ezequiel Piñero. A practical, modular approach to writing GDDs, based on lessons from leading a real production.
- Mario GDD — Full, real Game Design Document built in Strudo, public and clonable without signup.
- Full Example of a Professional GDD — Ezequiel Piñero. A single system (Donkey Kong's movement) documented end to end as a reference for structure and depth.
- Designer Notes — Soren Johnson (Civilization III, Spore). A long-running blog and interview series on the craft and tradeoffs of game design.
- Clockwork Game Design — Keith Burgun. Deep dives into game design theory and formal mechanics, from the author of Game Design Theory.
- Sirlin.net — David Sirlin. Detailed writing on systems design and competitive balancing, particularly fighting games.
- A Series of Interesting Choices — A blog focused specifically on the mechanics of meaningful player choice.
- Deconstructor of Fun — Written by F2P industry veterans, this is the go-to resource for understanding free-to-play design and player psychology.
- Psychology of Games — Jamie Madigan. Applies behavioral psychology research to why games (and their monetization) work the way they do.
- Game Developer (formerly Gamasutra) — The longest-running industry publication, with in-depth postmortems, design analysis, and breaking news.
- Strudo — Structured documentation for creative production teams: typed blocks, department filtering, and an engine-agnostic API to connect design docs with your pipeline. Free plan available.
- Notion — General-purpose workspace widely used for GDDs and wikis, with flexible databases and pages.
- Confluence — Atlassian's documentation tool, common in studios already using Jira for production tracking.
- Articy:Draft — Narrative and dialogue design tool with branching flowcharts and engine exporters (Unity, Unreal).
- World Anvil — Worldbuilding-focused tool for lore, timelines, maps, and interconnected wiki-style articles.
- Machinations — Visual, simulation-based tool for designing and balancing game economies and systems.
- Codecks — Card-based project management built specifically for game development teams.
- Miro — Infinite canvas whiteboard, often used for pre-production brainstorming and systems mapping.
- 📄 Templates
- 📊 Game Economy & Balance
- 🧠 Psychology & Player Experience
- 🎮 Level Design
- 🎲 Systems Design
- 📖 Narrative Design
- 🎨 UX/UI
- 📑 Academic Papers
- 🌍 Communities
- 🤖 AI for Game Design
This repository is maintained by Ezequiel Piñero, a game designer writing about game design documentation, systems design, and production at epinero.com.
Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before submitting changes.
This repository is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.
Focus on:
- Relevance to game design
- Practical usefulness
- Clear description of why the resource matters
- Avoiding duplication