Resource List

At the start of my game design study I had a very difficult time finding good resources to study/learn/be inspired by. Together with my fellow students, we searched all over the internet and book stores. I stored many of the online resources in my bookmarks and finally decided to arrange them for others to discover more easily. Some of these links will lead you to repositories of much greater value than this post. Others may be small troves of information that were found by chance through a stray mention.

I hope others may be inspired by these greats who threaded ground so that we don’t have to. Because you don’t know all there is to know yet.
Feel free to share other resources in the comments, I can’t wait to see more!

“Instructions”:
Most of these links are in no particular order. They’re in the order that I remembered them in. The goal of this list is for you to browse around. At one point I tried adding descriptions to all links, but this quickly became unwieldy. A glance at the individual authors/sites I link to will inform you much better.


Youtube Playlists

Game Design Mastermix – Youtube
All of the interesting Youtube (channels) I came across, I put in here. If you feel stupid, tank up on smarts here.

Art Fundamentals Mixpalette – Youtube
A more structured list that builds up some of the core principles all game artists should know. If you want to be a game programmer (not engine side), you should go through this as well. With help from @drawingmoose.

Math for Game Developers – Youtube
If you’re a programmer in this field of study, suck it up and get your learning on. Up till video ~#36 is all stuff you should be using on a daily basis. And it’s not that complicated and the videos explain it well with nice drawings to explain every concept.

Art Portfolio Preparation
By @drawingmoose. A collection of videos that summarize some important views to consider for building your art portfolio.


General Resources

Gamasutra
Keep up to date on recent events in the game industry and become inspired by featured blog posts on all possible subjects. Browse the archive for a wealth of information.
Game Developers Conference Vault
For years, game developers have gathered at the GDC to talk and give talks. Many high quality talks, micro talks and post mortems are available, increasingly for free.
Games Are For Everyone
A super tight website with resources intended to get you started making games.
GDC Vault Youtube
The YouTube page account for GDC. Recently the organisation started uploading featured talks here.
PixelProspector
Extra useful for beginners, this well categorized selection features guides and resources for all areas of development.
Oxford Dictionary
If you just can’t settle on spelling/pronunciation.
TIGSource Forums
A community of mostly independent and hobbyist developpers. A great place to exchange ideas and/or feedback.
NYU Game Center Vimeo
The NYU Game Center has uploaded numerous guest lectures for the world to see here.


General Articles

The Door Problem
What is Code? (super-regular human language)
Noah Bradley – How I became an artist.
Parable of the Polygons


Development Blogs

Joost’s Dev Blog (Ronimo Games)
In the Games of Madness (Frictional Games Blog)
The Witness Dev Blog
Valve Publications (papers/presentations from Valve)
Chopsticks Games Blog
Happion Laboratories


Podcasts

Three Moves Ahead
Designer Notes
Tone Control
The Game Design Roundtable
SynStudio Podcast


Design Blogs

The No Twinkie Database
Game Design Advance
Gausswerks: Design Reboot
Abbey Games Blog
Liz England
Lost Garden
Film Crit Hulk
Serpent Scribbles
Narrative First
Dramatica
World of Level Design
Sirlin on Game Design
still eating oranges
Nothing Sacred
Make Games
Mattie Brice
The Center for Ludic Synergy
What Games Are
Auntie Pixelante
Keith Burgun
Game Balance Concepts
Games Precipice
Just Gary Design Journal
Game Studies
the international journal of computer game research
Eludamos
Journal for Computer Game Culture
Well Played Journal
a journal on video games, value and meaning
How not to suck at game design
“Game design, visual art and progressive games culture. Resources, articles and showcases.”


Graphic Design

ArtStation
LevelUp
Art Cafe


Game Art

VERTEX books
A collaberative publication with articles supplied by numerous working artists. They discuss both relevant pipelines/workflows as well as their processes.
PRODUCTION ART – Model Sheets, Production Drawings & Others
Game Art Tricks
Zelda: Wind Waker graphic tricks
Deus Ex: Human Revolution Graphics Study
Supreme Commander – Graphics Study
Supreme Commander – Graphics Study
Geoff Lester’s Blog – Technical Art Director


Programming Resources

Stack Overflow
math-as-code
Reference for translating mathematical notations to code.
Google’s Student Guide to Technical Development
Handmade Hero
Must-See Tech Talks for Every Programmer
Read Great Code
40 Key Computer Science Concepts Explained in Layman’s Terms
Visualizing Algorithms
Scratch a Pixel
6 tools to keep your coder mind sharp
Render Hell 2.0 (comprehensive eBook style articles on the rendering pipeline)
Bitsquid: Development Blog
Purplpwny Blog
A Primer on Bézier Curves
Simulating the world (in emoji)
Cellular automata explained and visualised with emoji.


Coding Blogs

Amit’s Game Programming Information
Game Programming Patterns eBook
Coding Horror
Code of Honor
Catlike Coding
Procedural Content Generation in Games
Netflix Tech Blog
Papers, Please devblog
Tommy Refenes on starting programming
Professor Frisby’s Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming
Stuff With Stuff
Hans in the Land of Bards
Rabidgremlin’s Soapbox
IT Hare
Game Tutorials
Casey’s Blog
Mavor’s Rants
Allen Chou blog
Self Shadow (Lot’s of rendering articles)
Gaffer on Games


Great Subreddits

gamedev.reddit.com
gamedesign.reddit.com
userexperience.reddit.com
devblogs.reddit.com
TheMakingOfGames.reddit.com


Paid Resources

Lynda.com (lotsof studies have made deals with this site)
DigitalTutors.com (same as Lynda)


Tools:

Krita (drawing/painting/image editing), opens .psd
Blender (3D, UV, compositing)
Atom (Code editor, many free extensions)
Mischief (infinite canvas/zoom painting)
Kuadro
Free tool for arranging reference images in separate windows. You can save your layout for later use.
Fix my Pen
On Windows 7 and 8, some default settings may get in your way of using your drawing tablet. This utility will disable everything in one go, so your pen will just work.

https://i0.wp.com/abbeygames.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/game-designer.png?resize=604%2C378
Image by Adriaan Jansen – Abbey Games

Thank Yous:
Valentinas @VRimeika –  Robin @ntVadinci – Gerben @drawingmoose – Weikie @ilgniPtoN

Phieuw, as I’ve added more and more to this list I slowly realized how much latent stuff I have in my bookmarks. As time goes on, I’ll continue to dive back there and scoop out more links to share here.

Please tell me if you’re interested or found this stuff useful.

Greetings, Steff Kempink
@mswf

52 thoughts on “Resource List

  1. Awesome list. After reading seeing this I’m thinking doing a similar article listing the youtube resources I’ve found interesting 😀

    The ones I found really interesting the double documentary
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVwg-9WL3dE
    It gives a really good feel for how games are made and studios are run
    Also these rogue-like talks are really neat from the tech side of it:
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsvckwEGqlCwt9tuUqc-fTw

  2. For those who does not know basics and want to start from complete zero knowledge there is a nice resource:
    http://codeasy.net
    This course guides you with a story, where to proceed you need to solve tasks. You code directly in browser which makes it easy to start.

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