Game Design Journals
A collection of community blogs covering or analyzing game design topics.
This is a living, breathing collection that is continually updated as we come across new sites worth adding.
Game Design Theory
Active
- Daniel Cooke - Lost Garden (2000 - Present | sample post on Creating a System of Gameplay Notation)
- Josh Bycer - Critical Pieces (2008 - Present | sample post on Reexamining Replayability)
- Raph Koster (1998 - Present | sample post on An Atomic Theory of Fun Game Design)
- Chris Bateman - ihobo (1999 - Present | sample post on Games Are Not Shoes)
- Multiple Authors - First Person Scholar (2013 - Present | sample post on Revisiting Spec Ops: The Line a Decade Later)
- Jesper Juul - The Ludologist (2003 - Present | sample post on The Meanings & Consequences of Rules & Algorithms)
Inactive
- Project Horseshoe - Game Design Think Tank (2006 - 2019 | sample report on How to Reinvent a Genre)
- Ben Cousins (2004 - 2020 | sample post on Measurement Techniques for Game Designers)
- Joris Dormans (2006 - 2018 | sample post on Beyond Iconic Simulation)
- Stephanie Bura (2007 - 2011 | sample post on Emotion Engineering in Video Games)
- Ernest Adams - The Designer's Notebook (1997 - 2014 | sample post on Educational Games Don't Have To Stink)
- Michael Fitch (2003 - 2008 | sample post on Pissing In The Sandbox: What's In An Analogy?)
Narrative Design
Active
- Nathan Savant - The Bald Savant (2015 - Present | sample post on D&D, Skyrim, and Writing in Layers; pre-2021 content exists on this blog)
Inactive
- Greg Rucka (2010 - 2015 | sample post on Character Arcs in Mass Effect)
Game Development
Inactive
- Jurie Horneman - Intelligent Artifice (2002 - Present | sample post on A Reading List For Game Developers)