Early Access: 100 Games That Every Designer Should Play
Added 2024-05-15 13:27:20 +0000 UTCHello Patrons!
I went and did a very silly thing! I made a two hour video featuring 100 different games. And it took me FOREVER to make.
But it's finally done, and I think it's pretty cool. Taking us from Space Invaders and Pac-Man to Tunic and Vampire Survivors, this is a rapid-fire whirlwind tour of game design history. Each game has something to share or teach about design - and so I'll tell you why the game's important and tell you how to play it today.
I'll share more about the making of this video in the next "Mark's Month" newsletter. But for now - please enjoy!
Mark
Comments
It lasts two hours but I could have seen another two! Super well narrated and with good rythm. Congrats! I encourage you to do another 100 but not waiting another 10 years :P
Mario N.
2024-05-22 10:15:28 +0000 UTCMark, I'm more than happy to gush about how brilliantly Yakuza brings 'Kabukicho' to life in fictional video game format (and to help you with Japanaese pronounciantions!) Love the video btw, there's some classics in here I've never taken the time to play and would like to
Jonas Gawe
2024-05-18 22:21:44 +0000 UTCThere - finished it. What a wonderful 2 and a bit hours that was. So good to see glimpses of familiar, under-celebrated games as well as focusses on them too. Each point and each game was unarguable and well contexted (that's not really a word is it?). Well worth the huge effort of putting this together Mark. Thank you as ever.
Mr Jamie Le Fevre
2024-05-18 09:18:34 +0000 UTCLoved the list! Appreciate all the effort that must have gone into it. It was a very enjoyable 2+ hours, and many of the games would be on my own personal top 100 game design lessons list. Wanted to share one (of the few!) design lessons you didn't mention that stuck with me: Hearthstone Battlegrounds/DOTA Auto Chess: The power of micro choices - lots of moment by moment choices lead to highly engaging gameplay for the player. In Battlegrounds, players choose their initial hero, who has a unique ability. They choose whether and when to buy units in the shop, which units to buy, which synergistic strategies to pursue, when to level that shop for stronger units, and when to sell units for gold in order to buy new units. The game mode is mostly about these choices, and the high density of choices keep players engaged by never giving them a chance to be bored. Make some choices, get a result in the auto-battle combat section. Choice, result. Choice, result. Many highly engaging games use the power of micro choices and offer high choice density - think here of Balatro or Vampire Survivors - but I think autobattlers are a good poster child for the paradigm because the choices take center stage - the units literally fight amongst themselves!
Jeremiah Franczyk
2024-05-18 05:52:00 +0000 UTCI'll have to set some time aside for this one... but I'm sure it will be worth it!! :D
Oliver Villar
2024-05-17 22:42:21 +0000 UTCThat was a blast! A really interesting list and plenty to chew over. It's made me want to play a few games that I'd previously skirted around!
Stephen Dowling
2024-05-17 19:23:23 +0000 UTCAbsolutely excellent, Mark, a really enjoyable list and I'm only an hour in. What joy.
Mr Jamie Le Fevre
2024-05-17 12:30:19 +0000 UTCI have played a ton of Clicker / Idle games, and the best one imo is the "The First Alkahistorian" trilogy. They are based on converting basic elements into other elements and making more and less stable feedback loops. You will unlock a nerwork of nodes all flowing material between each other. Kinda like a puzzle game. There is some story on the background, and the graphics are basic, but the ideas behind it are really fun to discover. The third (and currently the last) one especially took things to a whole another level, with each "branch" you unlock giving you like a tree of further tools, as well as ways to upgrade your old nodes.
Willhart
2024-05-16 22:30:20 +0000 UTCAh! I missed that entirely - thanks, I've put a correction in the video description.
Game Maker's Toolkit
2024-05-16 19:49:50 +0000 UTCSpaceteams, game #60, is still on iOS (at least here in NA). However, it is now listed under its original creator, Henry Smith. It's been quietly updated throughout the years to offer more languages, more features and better network code. There's even a version aimed at learning English and French as second languages and an AppleTV version!
Benoit Desnoyers
2024-05-16 19:21:22 +0000 UTCWooo so exciting!
Micah Benson
2024-05-16 17:54:27 +0000 UTCCongrats on getting it done! Can't wait to watch it.
Luis Guillermo Jimenez Gomez
2024-05-16 17:48:40 +0000 UTClove ittt
Łukasz Partyka
2024-05-16 17:43:36 +0000 UTCCant wait to watch ! Thanks a lot that sounds really great!
Thibault Bignon
2024-05-16 16:03:37 +0000 UTC
