Best of Game Design — 2025

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Game Maker's Toolkit·1y
How to find amazing game ideas
Mark, who released 'Mind Over Magnet' on Steam, shares his experiences and lessons learned about the indie game development process. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the production pipeline to avoid common pitfalls and speed up development. The post explores various sources for game ideas, including modifying existing games, exploiting genre conventions, and drawing inspiration from real-life experiences. Mark provides practical tips for generating game ideas and evaluating their potential before committing to development.
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Game Designing·29w
The Future of Pixel Art in Games: Retro Style Meets Modern Tools
Pixel art continues to thrive in modern game development, driven primarily by indie developers who leverage it for budget efficiency and nostalgic appeal. Modern tools now enable artists to enhance classic pixel aesthetics with advanced effects like high-resolution layering, lighting systems, and physics-based sprites. The pixel game market is projected to grow 11.5% until 2031, as developers balance retro visual style with contemporary technology to create accessible, less computer-intensive games that appeal to both mobile and traditional gaming audiences.
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Hacker News·1y
A game system to play hundreds of board games
The DIY Multideck is a set of 162 customizable and waterproof cards that allow playing numerous classic and modern card games. Ideal for travel, prototyping new games, and trying out games before purchasing, it's designed to be durable and versatile. The cards feature various suits, ranks, and drawing areas, enabling players to adapt the deck for different games, including adding their own drawings to personalize gameplay. Detailed instructions for numerous games are available on the official website.
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80 LEVEL·47w
Student Breaks Down Bringing Lifelike Polar Bear To Life In 3D
A Gnomon student created a highly realistic 3D polar bear in just 10 weeks, featuring advanced muscle, fat, and skin simulations, procedural hair grooming, facial rigging with motion capture, and complex anatomical systems. The project showcased innovative procedural workflows in Houdini for muscle activation and automated rigging processes, combined with facial motion capture using MocapX for lifelike expressions.
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Blackthornprod·27w
5 DEVS Make SILKSONG without COMMUNICATING!
Five game developers independently create a Hollow Knight-inspired game in seven days without communication. Each developer contributes their specialty: hand-drawn 2D art and animations for the character Sherma and boss enemies, Unity programming for player controls and physics, music composition and audio implementation, sound effects and level design. The project demonstrates collaborative game development workflow, covering character animation, boss mechanics, parallax environments, shader programming, particle systems, and audio integration using Unity's input system and Cinemachine.
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The React Community·1y
A small gamified portfolio
A non-web developer seeks feedback on a gamified portfolio inspired by games like Hacknet and Uplink. The portfolio aims to cater to game designer positions but the creator is unsure if it meets HR expectations.
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DaFluffyPotato·1y
I've completed 25 game jams. You should too!
Participating in game jams can significantly enhance your skills as a game developer. These events require creating a game based on a theme within a limited time frame, pushing developers to commit to ideas, manage their time effectively, and complete projects. Game jams provide valuable experience in planning, organization, marketing, and offer extensive feedback from fellow developers, helping improve game design and launching successful games.
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Game Developers·39w
New movement animations
A game developer showcases new character movement animations for their indie game 'Baiacool - Tides of Olympus'. The animations are described as basic but significantly improve the character's movement fluidity and bring more life to the gameplay. The post includes a GIF demonstration and promotes the game's Steam wishlist page.
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80 LEVEL·1y
Beautiful Summoner & Monster Who Loves Her
Soohyeon Kim's new 3D artwork depicts a beautiful summoner and her monster, showcasing their loving relationship. The piece uses several design tools such as 3ds Max and ZBrush. Explore Kim's attention to detail on ArtStation and follow 80 Level for art resources and community engagement.
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Game Maker's Toolkit·36w
What's The Point Of Hard Games, Anyway?
Game difficulty serves three main purposes: creating satisfaction through overcoming challenges, supporting narrative themes, and encouraging proper gameplay mechanics usage. However, difficulty must be carefully balanced to avoid frustration. Effective difficulty design includes fair challenge mechanics, opportunities for players to adjust difficulty through exploration or settings, and ways to circumvent roadblocks. Games like Hollow Knight: Silksong demonstrate both successful difficulty implementation and problematic elements that can push players toward rage-quitting.
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Code Monkey·1y
I made the MOST PROFITABLE Game as a Test!
The shop simulator genre is highly popular and financially successful on Steam, with many titles earning millions and receiving positive reviews. These games are relatively straightforward to develop, making them accessible to indie developers. By focusing on player interactions and adding unique themes, developers can create appealing and profitable games. The author shares a prototype they created to test their game development toolkit, which includes various tools to simplify the development process.
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Game Designing·26w
What is Min Maxing in Games: The Virtues of a Game Strategy
Min-maxing is a game strategy where players minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths by optimizing character stats, builds, and abilities. Originating from tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, this approach has evolved across video game genres including RPGs, MOBAs, and shooters. Players use spreadsheets, calculators, and community forums to find optimal builds, creating an ongoing dynamic between developers who balance systems and players who find new optimization strategies. While some view it as obsessive number-crunching, others see it as strategic mastery and deep engagement with game mechanics.
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Juxtopposed·52w
I Redesigned the ENTIRE Minecraft UI from Scratch
The post discusses a complete redesign of Minecraft's UI to create a more cohesive and consistent experience across Java and Bedrock Editions. It highlights various design changes aimed at improving user interaction and accessibility, such as integrating tabs for streamlined settings, enhancing the recipe book interface, and ensuring a more engaging presentation of information through new icons and layout designs. The aim is to merge the playful elements of Bedrock with the minimalistic style of Java while addressing navigation complexities and enhancing the overall user experience.
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Code Monkey·38w
The BIGGEST Problem in Game Dev!
The 'door problem' illustrates the complexity of game development by showing how implementing something as simple as a door requires countless design decisions. From determining if doors can be opened, locked, or are decorative, to handling multiplayer scenarios and enemy spawning, each choice impacts the final game. The problem demonstrates that game design involves making thousands of seemingly mundane decisions that collectively define game quality, requiring input from multiple specialists including programmers, artists, sound designers, and animators.
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Game Developer·1y
Achieving 'creative sobriety' in game design
Fawzi Mesmar, at GDC 2025, emphasized the importance of 'creative sobriety' in game design, urging developers to use their personal experiences to create unique and original concepts. He highlighted the difference between replicating popular game mechanics and infusing personal insights to create engaging, original content, exemplified by games like Fields of Mistria. Mesmar advised creators to reflect on their experiences and intentions to develop meaningful and valuable ideas.
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GamesIndustry.biz·33w
The Drifter wins Game of the Year at Australian Game Developer Awards 2025
Powerhoof's point-and-click adventure game The Drifter won Game of the Year at the 2025 Australian Game Developer Awards, along with awards for art, narrative, and sound design. Massive Monster received Studio of the Year, while Witch Beam's Tempopo won for music and accessibility. Epic Games' Antony Reed was honored with the Adam Lancman Award for industry advocacy, and Adelaide developer Aiden Gyory received the Rising Star Award for community support and education initiatives.
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Gamefromscratch·1y
Get RPG Maker Free - This Week Only! ++ New GameDev Bundle Launched
RPG Maker VX Ace is available for free during the RPG Maker Festival 2025, which runs from February 3rd to 10th. This event celebrates Maker Day and features discounts on various RPG Maker products and games made using the platform. Additionally, new game development book bundles are available on Humble Bundle, including topics like game design, Unity development, and C++ programming.
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Unity·1y
Games made with Unity: December 2024 in review
December 2024 saw the release of several notable games developed using Unity. Highlights include the long-awaited release of 'Caves of Qud', the experimental 'Swordhaven: Iron Conspiracy', and the retro-styled MMORPG 'Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen'. Various genres were represented from FPS and horror to simulation and RPG.
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