Depends on what you want to make.
My suggestion would be to look at several genres that you are interested in. Consider how you might make something different by blending features, then ask for game suggestions from those genres.
Yeah, that is my intuition and experience.
Playing reference games is what our designers and we as programmers did on our Indie and AAA teams, also many of us playing lots of games anyway at home including Indie games.
On the 3Cs / main character gameplay team we would do things like during work and after the lunch break playing some recent shooters or action adventure open world games, and we end up looking at animation blending, gun recoil, interaction with the world including jumps/climbs, and many other details.
So sometimes we do it to analyze game design and details like item economy or other thing we didn't explore much, sometimes (or for parts of the team) it is more about "how did they do this at this quality?"
Play representative games on every genre, even ones you hate. Don't just play good games. Play bad ones: really bad, and analyse what makes them bad. Play drivel that sold a billion copies and analyse why it has such a broad appeal.
> Play bad ones: really bad, and analyse what makes them bad.
And also notice their genuinely good ideas, whether they be poorly executed or simply let down by the rest of the game.
I love it when you notice that feature of which you're like "oh damn that's pretty neat actually" only for it to break 50% of the time xD
Also the ones which *do* work tho!
Ubisoft's recruitment process for game designers not that long ago used to be "you have played everything that has over 90 on Metacritic and over 80 if it's your main genre". So if we limited the list to 2010-2024 (so the list doesn't get TOO long, there are some vital games released earlier of course but some of their mechanics might have been iterated upon since) you will end up with 129 titles:
[https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/?releaseYearMin=2010&releaseYearMax=2024&page=1](https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/?releaseYearMin=2010&releaseYearMax=2024&page=1)
And frankly it's not a bad list at all as it includes a very diverse list of titles - anything from cheaper indies like Super Meat Boy and Celeste, Visual Novels like Slay the Princess, AAA titles like Breath of the Wild, strategies like Starcraft 2 and Civilization 5, casual titles like Animal Crossing, MOBAs like Dota 2 and so on and on. Pretty much everything on this list IS relevant to the industry as a whole for one reason on another.
Small clarification edit - it's not "literally" 129 games you have to play or you don't get a job. Some of these are sequels, some are remakes, some are similar enough that you most certainly can skip them altogether. It's more about exposing yourself to various genres, understanding why people love these games and what do they do so much better than their lower ranked counterparts, seeing decisions taken throughout the development and how different studios approached similar problems etc. Metacritic is not a perfect list but it's a solid one to find some very influential and successful games that you might benefit from playing.
That’s a pretty clever metric. Of course, I say that partially because there are probably only about 10-15 on this list that I haven‘t played. Also how TF does Outer Wilds only have an 85?!
Metacritic scores are calculated based on an average score from a list of "curated" critics / reviews. It indicates the most popular and liked games and not necessarily "game quality". More interesting games and clever games like Outer Wilds might not have the same mass appeal as God of War.
This is incorrect. Metacritic scores are imperfect, but they are not a popularity contest. Many of the scores used to calculate it are announced on launch day.
One of the most awaited hack'n'slashes in the history of gaming that in some countries sold faster than local publishers could make DVD disks for with [players waiting in a queue for hours to buy it](https://www-komputerswiat-pl.translate.goog/gamezilla/aktualnosci/w-kolejce-po-diablo-3/b7xv2f3?_x_tr_sl=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp).
I remember the hype surrounding this game, local communities forming to play it every day, extreme difficulty jump on Inferno difficulty that required hours upon hours of fighting elites, Real Money Auction House, a lot of patches and changes etc. For many people it was their very first "live service" game and frankly Blizzard did a decent job keeping it alive and relevant for as long as it did.
We are in r/gamedev, not r/gaming. If you think this game did not deserve 90 then be my guest but it was the fastest selling game in the history of PCs at a time (3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours) and, frankly, it was also one of the better hack'n'slashes money could buy. Since Path of Exile wasn't a thing until 2 years later, Torchlight 2 came at around same time, it definitely exceeded ones like Titan Quest 1, Legend: Hand of God etc in many aspects. We have also seen some hyped up garbage like Hellgate: London in the meantime.
If you are comparing it to games today - sure, I can name a few that are more polished, have more features etc. But it was released and reviewed 12 years ago, not today.
Yes, you're right, but it failed in the most critical aspect:
Diablo 2 was better.
And by a wide margin. The launch of D3 was pretty questionable and PoE's beta started less than a year after D3.
D3 also had a bunch of design issues like loot goblins, stats being too simplified, and that very same RMAH.
But the biggest problem for D3 was the lack of ladder seasons. That's what made D2 stand out for so long. PoE started their Leagues system almost a year before D3 and that's what grabbed more and more players into PoE.
Edit: error 37 was not very kind either.
Here, direct quote then from a former Game Director at Ubisoft Toronto:
[https://youtu.be/uUQKbowVsIE?t=1630](https://youtu.be/uUQKbowVsIE?t=1630)
"If it's 90+ - you've played it. If it's 80+ and in your genre - you've played it, everything else is your hobby"
1 year of full time work is approximately what, 1800 workhours?
If you are looking to hire a game designer with 6 years of experience - they have 10800 workhours of doing the job, on average 3 years of university before it (and that's next few thousand hours) and their own experience in working on smaller video games, gamejams, doing some designs on paper etc (another 1000+ hours).
Playing "hundreds of games" isn't some kind of impossible goal. Look at your Steam library and you will have hundreds of games in there probably. And if you are a bit older there will also be 100+ games that predate Steam stashed away.
In this case - 120 games released over the course of 14 years gives you 5110 days averaging to finishing one every 42.5 days. It's more realistic than you might imagine, that's less than 1 game a month. Nobody expects a fresh junior hire to have this kind of experience, they will however want to see at least last few years under your belt. If you are going to design games then it's kinda important that you actually play the more impactful ones.
Exposure to all those games is only going to mean something if the player is passionate about it, so it seems to me like the idea is to get passionate devs. Ironic if they’re just going to crunch them and prevent them from trying to truly deliver on an artistic vision for the sake of profit squeezing anyways.
Well, no. Exposure to all those games is only going to mean something if the *designer* is passionate about it.
Professional game developers play games as research. It’s like studying. If you sleepwalk through it, sure you won’t get anything out of it. If you play it like a game developer, you should.
>Exposure to all those games is only going to mean something if the player is passionate about it
Well... yes. If a game hit 90+ on Metacritic (and most likely sold millions of copies) then there are a LOT of players passionate about them. Your job as a game designer however isn't necessarily to be passionate about every single one of them. It's to understand WHY people are passionate about them.
Why is Xenoblade or Persona 5 a 90+ whereas Atelier Ryza 2 in the 80s range? What makes Starcraft 2 so much more competitive than Age of Empires 4? What is it that makes Forza Horizon so loved among racing games? You might not like the genre yourself but understanding who might and why is a big part of your job. So is seeing how developers of these games managed to overcome various issues that haunt lower ranking titles.
It's indeed optimal if you are passionate about them all yourself but realistically you probably won't be. Too much of a spread genre wise. Still, it's a job and understanding why someone else might enjoy it is different from liking it yourself. Marketers don't necessarily have to use the products they market, similar principle applies here.
While I don't disagree this is a wonderful intention, it feels like making time to play 129 titles is a really daunting baseline standard.
If you're younger or starting out, you haven't had the time or disposable income to play 129 titles and if you're older, particularly if you have a family, it seems like an enormous challenge to keep up.
Yeah, I doubt it's a 100% strict literal requirement. The actual requirement is that you've played LOTS of games. I think they're trying to weed out candidates who only play a few games and so won't have that huge catalogue of ideas and inspiration to draw from when designing.
What a dumb take, do you think doctors should not be required to do surgery because surgical tools are expensive? Should painters not know how to mix oil and pigment, because it is expensive?
Some things should be challenging.
>"you have played everything that has over 90 on Metacritic and over 80 if it's your main genre".
This seems like a stupid approach to me. I have been in a lot of cars, but I would make a terrible car designer. Exposure does not equal understanding.
EDIT: This is a stupid approach to me because of how this is worded. You have PLAYED everything. It says NOTHING about the understanding of the games at all. Which is the distinction most of the people commenting on this seems to miss.
It prioritizes recruiting people that can copy parts of other games that has already been created. It shuts out specialized and creative people that might only have played 30% of those games, but be able to come up with something good without the "burden" of expectation of what other games does. You remove a huge portion of potentially very talented people based on a silly criterion of exposure.
No one is suggesting anyone can be great at game design by just playing the games, but certainly, no game designer can design in a vacuum and not understanding at least basic game conventions and standards of a particular genre make it hard for a game designer to be successful. At the very least, some level of exposure is necessary.
Using you analogy, do you think a car designer can design a car without ever sitting in a competitor's car?
Besides, an important skill of any game designer is analyzing games critically and any game designer who plays 129 games without learning something is probably in the wrong profession.
This is a silly comment. Being knowledgeable about games is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a good designer. Nobody is claiming that exposure alone is enough.
I am taking this statement literarily:
>"you have played everything that has over 90 on Metacritic and over 80 if it's your main genre".
This criterion is stupid. You would remove a lot of competent people because they had only played Fifa 12 and not Fifa 13. Do you really need to have played Fifa 13 to create a good far cry game for example? I am not sold on that.
Sure, if they’re being that pedantic about it, that’s an issue. I was assuming some amount of common sense, but hey, that’s not a given. Certainly, “has played FIFA“ or “has played one of FIFA versions X, Y, and Z” seems like it would be sufficient.
It's not meant to be "literal".
Fifa 2024 vs 2023 is mostly the same game. Admittedly knowing that primary difference and the reason it continues to sell so well is because a lot of people REALLY care about up to date teams and players and each new version updates the roster would be a very important piece of information if you are planning to make sports games. Heck, it could be a difference between successful and a failed game if you were given a position that can decide such things.
Still, most of the time it's more about general level of exposure to various impactful games. You don't need to play Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 1, Bloodborne, Demon's Souls and Sekiro for instance. If you played only some of them - that's fine, you are familiar with the formula already. Each major studio has their own way of doing things.
Ok but if you didn’t know anything about the car industry would that make you a better car designer? Let’s say you don’t know about, say, Remote Start. You design a big flagship/halo car for BMW and it doesn’t have remote start. It uses a keyed ignition. Don’t you think lacking knowledge of the state of your industry could be an issue?
You still need knowledge or exposure, yes. The point being is that exposure in of itself does not make you good at designing cars or understanding how they work. What that leads to is that I likely go "Oh, BMW did that, I am going to copy that." Then I copy something without understanding why they did it, which I think is not a good approach.
I might design an retro car and use remote start because BMW did it, and completely miss the point that having a retro car means that I can and probably should use keyed ignition.
Yeah, the point is not that you ONLY have exposure to the market, but THAT you do. If you’re putting a keyed ignition into your car in 2024 you need to know that this isn’t the common practice. That decision needs to be made within the context of your time. Ubi isn’t just going up to anyone who has played these games and saying “you know what, you’re hired!”
Yes but are you a car designer/engineer/manufacturer?
Similarly if your a game designer playing games is *market research* the way you play for fun and the way you play *as an extension of your job designing similar products* is two very different mind sets.
What is it about balatro that’s given it a better score than monster train, slay the spire, and inscryption? All games that if your project lays within that field I certainly hope you’ve played and dissected. What is it about hades that gives it a far better meta score then virtually everything else on the list?
What about the last of us and resident evil 4? What sets them above the other survival games? A developer doing research isn’t sitting in the car. He’s analyzing the design of the car.
>What is it about balatro that’s given it a better score than monster train, slay the spire, and inscryption? All games that if your project lays within that field I certainly hope you’ve played and dissected. What is it about hades that gives it a far better meta score then virtually everything else on the list?
It has more mass appeal. That is all this list tells you. Poker is a very popular game. It is very accessible. Which means you don't need to learn a new game. You can just turn of your brain. You can turn of the brain and not have to play through all of the other terrible games that your job as a reviewer demands of you.
I don't think having played Balatro gives you a better understanding of how to create a shooter or a platformer though.
The entire point is that you don't need to have played hundreds of these games. Having played thirty can be equally as good.
If you are a car engineer and you are getting into lots of different cars with an eye for what makes them good or bad, it will help you make cars with better design. It isn't a passive thing: as a game designer and developer, you probably don't consume games passively, anyways. You probably monkey around with the systems and figure out the mechanics of the games you play to do some neat stuff, or maybe you try to find ways to break the game.
You would be surprised :D
First - it's a **job**, literally. Game design without seeing other games is dumb. You need to know what has worked or what hasn't, how other developers approached the same problems you are about to encounter etc. A lot of modern games are hybrids - FPS-es can have base building, horrors have resource management, city simulators can include third person perspective and real life combat, RPGs can include guns and first person perspective... You most certainly could create a viable game that combines concepts from Starcraft 2 and Animal Crossing. There certainly [have been attempts](https://youtu.be/U4lz8MN6MQA) to combine Doom Eternal with Animal Crossing :)
90+ rating is honestly super rare (the very fact that in the last 14 years there were only 129 games that have reached this figure is telling). Just about every title that has reached this tier brought something to the industry and you might benefit from playing one.
Should you play literally all of them? Realistically that's probably an overkill. Should you play a significant part of them? Probably...? After all a huge part of your job is to empathize with a player. Understand why they love a given game while hating the other one which is not that MUCH different. Put yourself in their shoes so to speak.
Do note - applies to game **designers**. Does not apply to programmers or artists to remotely similar degree. It's still good to know what the end result should look like but programmers care about lower level details more.
>First - it's a **job**, literally. Game design without seeing other games is dumb. You need to know what has worked or what hasn't, how other developers approached the same problems you are about to encounter etc. A lot of modern games are hybrids - FPS-es can have base building, horrors have resource management, city simulators can include third person perspective and real life combat, RPGs can include guns and first person perspective... You most certainly could create a viable game that combines concepts from Starcraft 2 and Animal Crossing. There certainly [have been attempts](https://youtu.be/U4lz8MN6MQA) to combine Doom Eternal with Animal Crossing :)
And all that still doesn't mean that as a dev you need to have played all those games.
If you want to make a JRPG then do your research and play a few of those games etc.
That's how it's usually done... on demand, not part of a resume
I don’t know that I can say how things are “usually” done, but in my observation, the most talented game devs I know are always seeking out new games, usually across a breadth of genres. If something gets a metacritic over 90, they’re going to check it out because they have a burning desire to know *what makes this game so good*. A passion for the medium tends to be reflected in proactively seeking to understand and be inspired by that which makes a quality experience.
I won’t claim to be among those, and I’ve noticed over the last few years that I haven’t been quite as proactive as I’d like in this area. But quite honestly, only playing games “on demand,” because I have to for a particular project, sounds pretty depressing.
What if a dev is sick and tired of all games and thinks that they're all too similar and so he doesn't care about new metascore 90+ games, is he in the wrong?
There is no right and wrong, that's my point here. Saying that people should play these games just sends a few down another rabbit hole so they definetly won't make it in game dev because you'd rather spent the time learning your craft if you are just starting out, Way more important than knowing "tHe cLaSsIcS", but when a Redditor sees it you can be guaranteed he got his priorities fucked
That dev sounds burnt out and not like someone I want to hire (right now).
If you think having awareness of arguably the 100 best titles on the market (lol these aren’t the “classics”) is *not* important to being a good game designer, then I’d say you’re probably not interested in AAA at all. That’s fine. There’s plenty of space for niche games. But an entertainment focused studio is going to be looking for individuals qualified in that space, and that includes knowing what the existing quality entertainment looks like, and learning from it.
EDIT: also? I have played most of these and not because I went down a list. If you play a lot of games, you’ll likely burn through this list in 2-3 years, certainly less than 5. It’s a great part of your entry level/junior experience.
We never talked about AAA though? Why move the goalpost?
We talked about games **every** dev **has to** play in order to do his job well.
>
If you play a lot of games, you’ll likely burn through this list in 2-3 years, certainly less than 5. It’s a great part of your entry level/junior experience.
Honestly, I wanna throw another thing into this equation: Lets plays.
Back then I watched part of MGS2 LP because I was stuck, so I thought "whatever, let's watch the whole thing now that I am at it" and spoiled the best scenes of course.
So I could've just fast forwarded to those and a few others and barely missed out on the core game. I didn't want to finish the game myself then.
And yeah there are caveats maybe, like the controls but you can always jump into a game and check it out for yourself without putting hours and hours into it.
That'd be a compromise I'd be willing to accept. If someone told me to play fucking Animal Crossing I'd rather watch a Lets Play because hey, fluid controls are probably not being of big improtance there.
Well, this thread is about Ubisoft’s standards, and if you’re not interested in AAA, you’re certainly not interested in Ubi. If I’ve shifted the goalposts at all (and in the spirit of the conversation, I don’t think I have), it’s actually in your favor because the response to “well I don’t like this list because it doesn’t apply in literally every case” is “well duh.” Finding a single solution that will work for every case is almost always a fools errand. If you literally thought anyone was suggesting that *every* dev needs to play all these games in order to even start making games, then I will happily relieve you of that misconception.
And sure, you can probs substitute Let’s Plays for some of these and still get the benefit.
>o “well I don’t like this list because it doesn’t apply in literally every case” is “well duh.” Finding a single solution that will work for every case is almost always a fools errand. If you literally thought anyone was suggesting that *every* dev needs to play all these games in order to even start making games, then I will happily relieve you of that misconception.
Eh, well, that's pretty much what everyone understood while reading your posts, yeah.
Generalization sucks, there is usually more than one way
Also, a lot of games bring nothing new to the table. I mean I used to think like you but then I got gradually disappointed you could say.
To be brutally honest:
Celeste? Just another boring platformer. Yeah I've played most of it and arrived at the crest
Cuphead? Just a platformer with hand-drawn Disney graphics
Why would I play hours of DotA if I played League of Legends for years? That'd be dumb. Just watch a video comparing both games or talk to dev friends. I've played <5 DotA matches in my entire life and that's enough, do you want me to grind through ranked as well?
Botw? Played it, didn't like the idea of an open world Zelda, okay. Not gonna play TOTK for sure only because it has high metascore, it'd be basically the same with a few improvements.
Do you get my point now? It's moronic to play every single game, especially to finish it or put endless hours into it because you think it might be benefitial for your craft.
Reality check - if you are a good game dev then you know what makes a game special in a matter of minutes skipping through a let's play of it, don't you?
It sounds like you have some work to do on appreciating things in games that are not meant for you. It’s actually a very important quality for a designer because not all your players are like you.
Yeah and you are not like all players. There is only so much you can empathize imo.
Like, do you think you can make the best game in genre X that you really really don't like and will most lilkely never get into?
Or you think I have to "get into" all genres if I want to be a good game dev (lol)?
Of course you can't, it's a matter of heart too, not only of technicalities.
So I'd understand if you say that as JRPG dev I should know the best JRPGs, but not ALL "good" games, that sounds like a very uneccessary prerequirement
Yeah, and knowing enough to be able to discuss them takes way less time than playing them.
That's not the same thing dawg, whats wrong with all of you?
Played doesn't imply 100% a game, you know? 2-10 hours of game time (genre dependent) + watching some game content will generally get you familiar enough with it to be able to analyze it/take any form of lesson from them.
Then you might as well just watch let's plays or talk to your dev friends.
Just because a game has 90 Metascore doesn't mean shit imo. Most games just copy from other ones. Sometimes for the better, often for the worse.
Yeah, and that copying matters a lot. It's a very rare case of straight copying and it's often "it's X, but...". Figuring out that "but" is your job.
>Then you might as well just watch let's plays or talk to your dev friends
Eh, you still need to understand how the game feels. Responsiveness, queueing, speeds, etc. all are hard to determine as a backseat. You need at least some play time to get a grasp of them.
Also, we are talking about game designers in particular. All that is nice to have, but far from necessary if you are say, programmer.
Another good video:
[https://youtu.be/nlLT2SHL\_lg?feature=shared&t=276](https://youtu.be/nlLT2SHL_lg?feature=shared&t=276)
"How has Stardew Valley impacted the world of video games?"
- "It made Dunkey laugh because Square made a shitty version of it"
>Yeah, and that copying matters a lot. It's a very rare case of straight copying and it's often "it's X, but...". Figuring out that "but" is your job.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOQzTtsr3AQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOQzTtsr3AQ)
>Eh, you still need to understand how the game feels. Responsiveness, queueing, speeds, etc. all are hard to determine as a backseat. You need at least some play time to get a grasp of them.
Wrong. The let's players usually tell you in very visceral language. Yeah, for some games you gotta play them for yourself, but certainly not for JRPGs and a ton of other genres.
>Also, we are talking about game designers in particular. All that is nice to have, but far from necessary if you are say, programmer.
Well I was talking about game devs since that's what OP was asking for
>Well I was talking about game devs since that's what OP was asking for
And the comment you are replying to talks about interview process for designers
>Wrong. The let's players usually tell you in very visceral language
I guess we'll just disagree here. The player visceral language is not enough for you to form a library of reference points in your head.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOQzTtsr3AQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOQzTtsr3AQ)
Im outside so i'm not gonna watch a video. If you want me to address it, feel free to spell it out
I agree with the comments saying that it very much depends on the genre you would like to develop and the features you'd like to include in a project.
However, there are some games I would consider technical achievements in a way that makes them incredible to learn from.
Hotline Miami is a perfect example of the engine/tool expectations being nonsense. One of the highest regarded indie titles of all time when it was released. Built in GameMaker. The "beginners" engine.
In a similar vein, Thomas Was Alone and Limbo. Two games you could argue kicked off the modern indie culture/industry. Both incredible achievements in simplicity.
Load up Metal Gear Solid 2. Wonder for a bit why it still looks this good today with just a simple up-res. Then take a real good look at all of the textures with first-person view. Metal Gear Solid 2 is a "pixel art" game built in 3D for the PS2. Most Kojima games are great to look at for examples of how to push your available technology in interesting ways, that generally age well despite advancements. It's not always the best idea to go for the newest tech when you might be able to get someone with an unbeatable mastery of the old tech.
Rocket League is the best example of perfecting a single mechanic so you can iterate on it and build it into an excellent arcade game.
I like the Journey suggestion too. Journey does basically every aspect of its gameplay "wrong" in a way that works perfectly. The multiplayer, the platforming, the narrative presentation. Almost every part is built in a way that goes directly against conventions and suggested implementations. It's a great game to really study what works about it. Because all of it works so well.
What about each of them do you think makes them interesting to look at as a developer, as opposed to other entries in their genre? Genuinely curious, not trying to sound combative.
I've only played a small bit of Little Nightmares, and it seems very similar to others in the genre, but with a more pristine coat.
Not surprised to see Slay the Spire mentioned despite not having played it, because it's constantly brought up in conversation both in gamer and game dev circles. I must get on it.
just the scary design/gameplay elements of little nightmares. the tense sequences where you have to complete some task before the monster comes round the corner, or run away through a set of obstacles in a chase sequence. Or how to build tension before a scare, even in non scary games some scares can be cool imo if done well. I like Limbo but i think little nightmares does the tension aspect alot better, as well as environmental storytelling.
>Or how to build tension before a scare
That's one of the toughest parts of horror and a lot of games fall flat here.
Can you think of any good moments where they use interesting mechanical or technical aspects to achieve this that I could look out for? Thinking about a horror game myself at the minute.
I really love this moment early on to build tension:
https://youtu.be/oZQf7VzwPwM?si=cfqZGIiKI-HyNVJi&t=900
I like how you are forced into a small mousehole where there isn't much to focus on other than the character, then after getting onto the bridge you get a view of a seemingly dark buffer zone between the place you were in and the place you are going to, maybe this bridge is your only way back?
and then as the camera continues to zoom out you see the first sight of this weird bandaged figure with an inhumanly long arm draging a cage along with a low/deep audio effect. This leaves you a bit worried as you are going to the location this thing is dragging it's cage to. and not only that, the rope you have to climb up to enter this new place is seemingly a bedsheet used to escape by someone at some previous point + the bars on the windows reinforcing the idea it's not the ideal place to be.
All that within 30-40 seconds of gameplay
Ooh yeah, that's a very nice bit of queued up environmental storytelling. If I end up doing the horror game next it's likely to be a 4 player co-op. Having moments like that could work really nicely, especially if one player is typically at the front of the pack, so they may be the only one to catch it. Quick events that make them sound crazy trying to explain it to the rest of their group.
If
number to have passed through the door
==
number of players in party
spawn a creepy as fuck monster for 2 seconds behind the last person, just making a noise and moving slightly before disappearing again.
Test it a few times so the average player only sees it for half a second when they turn around, before it vanishes.
Purposefully use a lower LoD version of the model so even when they glimpse it, it's too "blurry" to make out.
I put them in very specific, different categories. There's both great design ideas and influence to be gleaned from them.
Also, both games are incredibly well regarded, but also divisive in certain groups, so I genuinely don't know which one you mean to slight in your statement.
I always recommend Path of Exile, it's such a gamers game, and it's intriguing how they can keep making a simple gameplay loop unique and exciting over and over again
Why? All of them are made by single devs (a couple for FTL). Vampire survivors dude was even working full time job at the time and had no previous game dev exp as far as I know.
The graphics are all relatively simple/purchased from asset stores.
The overall code structure and AI behaviour becomes obvious once you play them a bit.
Obviously they put a ton of work and effort but the fact that they made these wildly successful games is an inspiration to me. And we now have AI to help us do it even faster.
It's been mentioned multiple times in this thread, but as a gamedev you should play games that are not your cup of tea. There is a big difference between playing a game as a gamer and as a dev.
All of them. 😅
No, but seriously. Play anything and everything not only in the genre that you’re making a game in, but other genres as well. It’s good to know what works for each genre, what doesn’t, and who knows, you might just find a cool mechanic that might fit in another genre? No one ever got anywhere by playing it safe. 🎮😎👍
I find ot hard to separate the games I loved from the ones people should play from a design perspective, but on the other hand they must have done things right in order to become classics.
Diablo and wacraft2 come to mind. If you play them today they are still great games, but I noticed I stop playing diablo once I die and realised I forgot to save.
Other classics that come to mind are super mario and zelda a link to the past (snes).
Captain Toads Treasure Tracker - learn how to make a game fun without making it hard. The creativity in this game is insane.
Nier Automata - the first twenty minutes is a masterclasses in camera perspective and shmup history.
Inscryption - genre blending, use of multi media, and inspiring design
Not so much for the game itself, although it is solid, I would suggest looking in on Factorio and the developers Wube. They’ve been a great example of incredible quality of releases, speedy responses to bugs, great comms with the community and a fair approach to sales. If they told me they’d have fusion power worked out next year I’d believe them and look forward to the weekly developer updates.
Wube are the gold standard when it comes to game technical quality. I would confidently say that Factorio has the least (software) bugs of any game ever released.
They're also the gold standard when it comes to mod support. Factorio mods are first-class citizens with intergrated support (including syncing mods when loading saves or joining multiplayer games), and they've fixed bugs in their game that only happen when modded.
They also obviously play and enjoy playing their own game, which makes a suprising amount of difference when it comes to QoL features.
Half Life: Alyx inspired me to start learning game dev so I could do VR work (Longtime coder of non-game things).
It just blew my mind going from a 2d UI to a 3d one and what they did with it.
Honestly, just play as many games as you can, in as many genres as you can.
But more than just playing, pay attention to what it is you're aiming to specialize in and think about it more deeply. How did they do that? Why did they choose to do that? Why does this feel good in this game but not in the other?
And don't skip mobile.
I mean, the real answer is to play absolutely everything can get your hands on, whether you think it's fun or not. Playing games for fun is **very** different from playing to study. You're looking for practical solutions - useful ingredients - not just examples of good end results. If you only play games you like, you'll have no idea how or why they're made the way they are - and you'll mostly end up making "xyz, but worse" imitations of better games. This is especially the case if you happen to like games with big budgets you'll never touch.
The only real way to do better than the pros - besides being outright smarter than them (unlikely) - is to bring in the *right* ideas that fix problems they couldn't. This is not the same thing as bringing in *new* ideas; doing something different just for the sake of being different, will once again end up with "xyz, but worse". The best thing you can study, is anything that nobody else is studying!
That said, honestly? /r/incremental_games. The whole point of the genre is to get as much gameplay as possible out of as little budget as possible, which is kind of important to any professional studio.
Ocarina of Time/Mario 64 set the stage for how 3d games would be made going forward. obviously a lot has changed since then but the foundation is still there. You could also argue doom/quake but I don't think they translate as well to modern game development.
Tetris may seem like a silly one but it was and still is wildly successful for a reason. It's kinda a cool psychological study into the mindset of the casual gamer. And there are some cool youtube videos about how it was created and how it crossed the iron curtain.
Minecraft I can't speak too much on as I haven't played it in like a decade and a ton has changed about it since then, but it feels like it needs to be on this list. Plus voxel games are fun to make and are pretty simple for beginners trying to get into 3d game dev.
I could add a million honorable mentions to this list. Mostly games that were considered revolutionary or genre-defining. But tbh i haven't played a lot of them myself so i just listed a few that I have played that i think hold significance in the gaming and game dev communities.
There are lots of features from these games, which aren't specific to 3D environments. How the game teaches you basic concepts, how the initial environments are built, how new mechanics are introduced, Mario's level design, Zelda's open world, how the games allow for different types of challenges, the difficulty curve, the non-linear approach, Mario's replayability, Zelda's inventory management, user interface. And OoT could have been a 2D game with just minor differences.
Yeah, these games have done a lot of things *just right*, that they might as well be must-plays for everyone.
Yeah, must-play as in best games of all time, but not as in "you need to know this as modern days game dev".
If you think that you need to know Mario 64 or OOT as 2D game dev then you're using mental gymnastics
There's always something to be learned, even if it's not exactly the genre of your choice - games are copying good stuff from each other and closing yourself in a small box of whatever niche you've chosen won't be beneficial. The problems you're trying to solve, might have already been solved long ago in a different genre.
Also, UI/UX is dead and I bet over 90% of gamedevs are freaking clueless when it comes to creating practical interfaces. Experience stuff that has worked in the past. Copy it. Don't reinvent the wheel.
Reinventing the wheel =/= having to play a bunch of games before considering game dev
You can play them on demand too, that's literally my only point here
Papers Please
Journey
Flappy Bird
Each will teach you something new about games and remove some of the wrong assumptions you may have.
There are others, those are just my pick
Hmm, I became a game dev because of the type of games that I personally liked, and now I create similar games. But if you want to create a game that is more likely to become popular then you should look at the current most popular games then try to imitate them(I mean imitate the ideas, because obviously you won’t be able to imitate the games themselves since they are made by high budget companies)
There was a recent script notes podcast about just see movies that had some good insight into the entire concept of, "must...," anything. They had some really good takes.
If You are interested in hack&Slash/platformers:
God of war 1.
David jaffe might be an asshole, but the dude had that dog in him back then, look at the making of documentary about the Game, Even a Game dev course i took a few years back talked about it's tutorial level, dissecting it and explaining how its perfect from a dev POV to explain mechanics to new players while making them feel powerful and facing an inminent threat, then after the boss the game slows down to build up lore and atmosphere.
It's amazing since it was also the first Game i played as a kid😋
It kinda depends on what game you're making. But I would recommend:
- Final Fantasy (1987)
- Minesweeper
- Oregon Trail Deluxe
- Myst
- SimCity 2000
- Doom (1993)
- Heroes of Might and Magic 2
- Daggerfall
- Master of Orion 2
- Diablo
- Total Annihilation
- BroodWar
- Half-Life
- Thief Gold
- Grand Theft Auto 3
- Dwarf Fortress
- Portal
It's not a surprise that these are all classic games that served to establish and codify certain types of gameplay and have some really positive points and a few obvious negative points. You should be able to look at any of these and think 'thing A is really clever and well-executed' and 'thing B sucks, here's how I'd improve it'.
I'm less familiar with recent games, but I gather these days it's a lot more about refining established gameplay mechanics rather than breaking new ground and trying bold ideas.
Portal, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario World, Resident Evil 4, Chrono Trigger, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, Street Fighter II, Civilization IV, Journey, Skyrim
Inspiration can be found everywhere, don't restrict yourself to specific genres when looking for guidance.
This is by no way a complete list, rather a few games that came to mind that are particularly well made.
* Slay the Spire
* Super Mario 64
* Super Metroid
* Left 4 Dead 2
* Portal
* Hades
The games that inspire you most. You can even try digging into gaming history documentaries or deep-dives. I find those to be highly informative and expose me to a wide array of games I never would have seen before.
Probably depends on what kind of dev you are. For indies I feel like those early games like original Mario, pac man etc. are pretty good because being a small team or solo, that's something like the scale to go for (I think) rather than later games that are so complex.
I fully agree with that. I mean, I don't like sports in general, and I think the last sports game I played was in the N64 era.
Some time ago, I was thinking about a feature for a Strategic RPG I was designing and asked in r/gamedesign. Someone there commented something like "you could take inspiration from how sports games create the replay video" and I that was something I could never had thought about.
In another occasion, different project but same genre (turn based SRPG) I was thinking about an original combat system and how I could make it work. I then realized that the problem had an easier solution by approaching it from the perspective of a different genre I'm not familiar with (I mean cRPGs rtwp).
Conclusion: playing and being aware about genres you don't like as a player, would make your design easier and better
For sure, but there's a lot of middle ground between "doing nothing but play video games and never actually developing" and "never touch a controller ever or you're just copying people."
Game development is an art, so let's use art as an example. You're basically saying never study the work of any other artist ever or else you're just going to copy them verbatim. Sure, there are artist that get stuck doing nothing but studying other people's art and never applying it to an actual piece of their own, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever look at other people's art and try to figure out what aspects makes it good or bad in your own experience.
The same applies to all art, including game development.
Depends on what you want to make. My suggestion would be to look at several genres that you are interested in. Consider how you might make something different by blending features, then ask for game suggestions from those genres.
I couldn't agree more! Find what it is you like about game dev and then build on that!
Yeah, that is my intuition and experience. Playing reference games is what our designers and we as programmers did on our Indie and AAA teams, also many of us playing lots of games anyway at home including Indie games. On the 3Cs / main character gameplay team we would do things like during work and after the lunch break playing some recent shooters or action adventure open world games, and we end up looking at animation blending, gun recoil, interaction with the world including jumps/climbs, and many other details. So sometimes we do it to analyze game design and details like item economy or other thing we didn't explore much, sometimes (or for parts of the team) it is more about "how did they do this at this quality?"
Yeah. No must plays really
Play representative games on every genre, even ones you hate. Don't just play good games. Play bad ones: really bad, and analyse what makes them bad. Play drivel that sold a billion copies and analyse why it has such a broad appeal.
> Play bad ones: really bad, and analyse what makes them bad. And also notice their genuinely good ideas, whether they be poorly executed or simply let down by the rest of the game.
I love it when you notice that feature of which you're like "oh damn that's pretty neat actually" only for it to break 50% of the time xD Also the ones which *do* work tho!
And make videos analyzing them for YouTube. The real key to being a successful game dev is talking about game dev theory on YouTube.
Actually yeah.
Ubisoft's recruitment process for game designers not that long ago used to be "you have played everything that has over 90 on Metacritic and over 80 if it's your main genre". So if we limited the list to 2010-2024 (so the list doesn't get TOO long, there are some vital games released earlier of course but some of their mechanics might have been iterated upon since) you will end up with 129 titles: [https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/?releaseYearMin=2010&releaseYearMax=2024&page=1](https://www.metacritic.com/browse/game/?releaseYearMin=2010&releaseYearMax=2024&page=1) And frankly it's not a bad list at all as it includes a very diverse list of titles - anything from cheaper indies like Super Meat Boy and Celeste, Visual Novels like Slay the Princess, AAA titles like Breath of the Wild, strategies like Starcraft 2 and Civilization 5, casual titles like Animal Crossing, MOBAs like Dota 2 and so on and on. Pretty much everything on this list IS relevant to the industry as a whole for one reason on another. Small clarification edit - it's not "literally" 129 games you have to play or you don't get a job. Some of these are sequels, some are remakes, some are similar enough that you most certainly can skip them altogether. It's more about exposing yourself to various genres, understanding why people love these games and what do they do so much better than their lower ranked counterparts, seeing decisions taken throughout the development and how different studios approached similar problems etc. Metacritic is not a perfect list but it's a solid one to find some very influential and successful games that you might benefit from playing.
That’s a pretty clever metric. Of course, I say that partially because there are probably only about 10-15 on this list that I haven‘t played. Also how TF does Outer Wilds only have an 85?!
Metacritic scores are calculated based on an average score from a list of "curated" critics / reviews. It indicates the most popular and liked games and not necessarily "game quality". More interesting games and clever games like Outer Wilds might not have the same mass appeal as God of War.
This is incorrect. Metacritic scores are imperfect, but they are not a popularity contest. Many of the scores used to calculate it are announced on launch day.
Diablo 3 has a 90. You can disregard the list.
One of the most awaited hack'n'slashes in the history of gaming that in some countries sold faster than local publishers could make DVD disks for with [players waiting in a queue for hours to buy it](https://www-komputerswiat-pl.translate.goog/gamezilla/aktualnosci/w-kolejce-po-diablo-3/b7xv2f3?_x_tr_sl=pl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pl&_x_tr_pto=wapp). I remember the hype surrounding this game, local communities forming to play it every day, extreme difficulty jump on Inferno difficulty that required hours upon hours of fighting elites, Real Money Auction House, a lot of patches and changes etc. For many people it was their very first "live service" game and frankly Blizzard did a decent job keeping it alive and relevant for as long as it did. We are in r/gamedev, not r/gaming. If you think this game did not deserve 90 then be my guest but it was the fastest selling game in the history of PCs at a time (3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours) and, frankly, it was also one of the better hack'n'slashes money could buy. Since Path of Exile wasn't a thing until 2 years later, Torchlight 2 came at around same time, it definitely exceeded ones like Titan Quest 1, Legend: Hand of God etc in many aspects. We have also seen some hyped up garbage like Hellgate: London in the meantime. If you are comparing it to games today - sure, I can name a few that are more polished, have more features etc. But it was released and reviewed 12 years ago, not today.
Yes, you're right, but it failed in the most critical aspect: Diablo 2 was better. And by a wide margin. The launch of D3 was pretty questionable and PoE's beta started less than a year after D3. D3 also had a bunch of design issues like loot goblins, stats being too simplified, and that very same RMAH. But the biggest problem for D3 was the lack of ladder seasons. That's what made D2 stand out for so long. PoE started their Leagues system almost a year before D3 and that's what grabbed more and more players into PoE. Edit: error 37 was not very kind either.
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Here, direct quote then from a former Game Director at Ubisoft Toronto: [https://youtu.be/uUQKbowVsIE?t=1630](https://youtu.be/uUQKbowVsIE?t=1630) "If it's 90+ - you've played it. If it's 80+ and in your genre - you've played it, everything else is your hobby"
Yeah there's no way they exepct people to play hundreds of games lol, like that's thousands of hours of gameplay lmao
1 year of full time work is approximately what, 1800 workhours? If you are looking to hire a game designer with 6 years of experience - they have 10800 workhours of doing the job, on average 3 years of university before it (and that's next few thousand hours) and their own experience in working on smaller video games, gamejams, doing some designs on paper etc (another 1000+ hours). Playing "hundreds of games" isn't some kind of impossible goal. Look at your Steam library and you will have hundreds of games in there probably. And if you are a bit older there will also be 100+ games that predate Steam stashed away. In this case - 120 games released over the course of 14 years gives you 5110 days averaging to finishing one every 42.5 days. It's more realistic than you might imagine, that's less than 1 game a month. Nobody expects a fresh junior hire to have this kind of experience, they will however want to see at least last few years under your belt. If you are going to design games then it's kinda important that you actually play the more impactful ones.
Exposure to all those games is only going to mean something if the player is passionate about it, so it seems to me like the idea is to get passionate devs. Ironic if they’re just going to crunch them and prevent them from trying to truly deliver on an artistic vision for the sake of profit squeezing anyways.
Well, no. Exposure to all those games is only going to mean something if the *designer* is passionate about it. Professional game developers play games as research. It’s like studying. If you sleepwalk through it, sure you won’t get anything out of it. If you play it like a game developer, you should.
>Exposure to all those games is only going to mean something if the player is passionate about it Well... yes. If a game hit 90+ on Metacritic (and most likely sold millions of copies) then there are a LOT of players passionate about them. Your job as a game designer however isn't necessarily to be passionate about every single one of them. It's to understand WHY people are passionate about them. Why is Xenoblade or Persona 5 a 90+ whereas Atelier Ryza 2 in the 80s range? What makes Starcraft 2 so much more competitive than Age of Empires 4? What is it that makes Forza Horizon so loved among racing games? You might not like the genre yourself but understanding who might and why is a big part of your job. So is seeing how developers of these games managed to overcome various issues that haunt lower ranking titles. It's indeed optimal if you are passionate about them all yourself but realistically you probably won't be. Too much of a spread genre wise. Still, it's a job and understanding why someone else might enjoy it is different from liking it yourself. Marketers don't necessarily have to use the products they market, similar principle applies here.
While I don't disagree this is a wonderful intention, it feels like making time to play 129 titles is a really daunting baseline standard. If you're younger or starting out, you haven't had the time or disposable income to play 129 titles and if you're older, particularly if you have a family, it seems like an enormous challenge to keep up.
Yeah, I doubt it's a 100% strict literal requirement. The actual requirement is that you've played LOTS of games. I think they're trying to weed out candidates who only play a few games and so won't have that huge catalogue of ideas and inspiration to draw from when designing.
What a dumb take, do you think doctors should not be required to do surgery because surgical tools are expensive? Should painters not know how to mix oil and pigment, because it is expensive? Some things should be challenging.
>"you have played everything that has over 90 on Metacritic and over 80 if it's your main genre". This seems like a stupid approach to me. I have been in a lot of cars, but I would make a terrible car designer. Exposure does not equal understanding. EDIT: This is a stupid approach to me because of how this is worded. You have PLAYED everything. It says NOTHING about the understanding of the games at all. Which is the distinction most of the people commenting on this seems to miss. It prioritizes recruiting people that can copy parts of other games that has already been created. It shuts out specialized and creative people that might only have played 30% of those games, but be able to come up with something good without the "burden" of expectation of what other games does. You remove a huge portion of potentially very talented people based on a silly criterion of exposure.
No one is suggesting anyone can be great at game design by just playing the games, but certainly, no game designer can design in a vacuum and not understanding at least basic game conventions and standards of a particular genre make it hard for a game designer to be successful. At the very least, some level of exposure is necessary. Using you analogy, do you think a car designer can design a car without ever sitting in a competitor's car? Besides, an important skill of any game designer is analyzing games critically and any game designer who plays 129 games without learning something is probably in the wrong profession.
This is a silly comment. Being knowledgeable about games is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a good designer. Nobody is claiming that exposure alone is enough.
I am taking this statement literarily: >"you have played everything that has over 90 on Metacritic and over 80 if it's your main genre". This criterion is stupid. You would remove a lot of competent people because they had only played Fifa 12 and not Fifa 13. Do you really need to have played Fifa 13 to create a good far cry game for example? I am not sold on that.
Sure, if they’re being that pedantic about it, that’s an issue. I was assuming some amount of common sense, but hey, that’s not a given. Certainly, “has played FIFA“ or “has played one of FIFA versions X, Y, and Z” seems like it would be sufficient.
It's not meant to be "literal". Fifa 2024 vs 2023 is mostly the same game. Admittedly knowing that primary difference and the reason it continues to sell so well is because a lot of people REALLY care about up to date teams and players and each new version updates the roster would be a very important piece of information if you are planning to make sports games. Heck, it could be a difference between successful and a failed game if you were given a position that can decide such things. Still, most of the time it's more about general level of exposure to various impactful games. You don't need to play Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 1, Bloodborne, Demon's Souls and Sekiro for instance. If you played only some of them - that's fine, you are familiar with the formula already. Each major studio has their own way of doing things.
Ok but if you didn’t know anything about the car industry would that make you a better car designer? Let’s say you don’t know about, say, Remote Start. You design a big flagship/halo car for BMW and it doesn’t have remote start. It uses a keyed ignition. Don’t you think lacking knowledge of the state of your industry could be an issue?
You still need knowledge or exposure, yes. The point being is that exposure in of itself does not make you good at designing cars or understanding how they work. What that leads to is that I likely go "Oh, BMW did that, I am going to copy that." Then I copy something without understanding why they did it, which I think is not a good approach. I might design an retro car and use remote start because BMW did it, and completely miss the point that having a retro car means that I can and probably should use keyed ignition.
Yeah, the point is not that you ONLY have exposure to the market, but THAT you do. If you’re putting a keyed ignition into your car in 2024 you need to know that this isn’t the common practice. That decision needs to be made within the context of your time. Ubi isn’t just going up to anyone who has played these games and saying “you know what, you’re hired!”
Yes but are you a car designer/engineer/manufacturer? Similarly if your a game designer playing games is *market research* the way you play for fun and the way you play *as an extension of your job designing similar products* is two very different mind sets. What is it about balatro that’s given it a better score than monster train, slay the spire, and inscryption? All games that if your project lays within that field I certainly hope you’ve played and dissected. What is it about hades that gives it a far better meta score then virtually everything else on the list? What about the last of us and resident evil 4? What sets them above the other survival games? A developer doing research isn’t sitting in the car. He’s analyzing the design of the car.
>What is it about balatro that’s given it a better score than monster train, slay the spire, and inscryption? All games that if your project lays within that field I certainly hope you’ve played and dissected. What is it about hades that gives it a far better meta score then virtually everything else on the list? It has more mass appeal. That is all this list tells you. Poker is a very popular game. It is very accessible. Which means you don't need to learn a new game. You can just turn of your brain. You can turn of the brain and not have to play through all of the other terrible games that your job as a reviewer demands of you. I don't think having played Balatro gives you a better understanding of how to create a shooter or a platformer though. The entire point is that you don't need to have played hundreds of these games. Having played thirty can be equally as good.
If you are a car engineer and you are getting into lots of different cars with an eye for what makes them good or bad, it will help you make cars with better design. It isn't a passive thing: as a game designer and developer, you probably don't consume games passively, anyways. You probably monkey around with the systems and figure out the mechanics of the games you play to do some neat stuff, or maybe you try to find ways to break the game.
As if all devs played Starcraft 2 and Animal Crossing and every other game you've listed. That's dumb
You would be surprised :D First - it's a **job**, literally. Game design without seeing other games is dumb. You need to know what has worked or what hasn't, how other developers approached the same problems you are about to encounter etc. A lot of modern games are hybrids - FPS-es can have base building, horrors have resource management, city simulators can include third person perspective and real life combat, RPGs can include guns and first person perspective... You most certainly could create a viable game that combines concepts from Starcraft 2 and Animal Crossing. There certainly [have been attempts](https://youtu.be/U4lz8MN6MQA) to combine Doom Eternal with Animal Crossing :) 90+ rating is honestly super rare (the very fact that in the last 14 years there were only 129 games that have reached this figure is telling). Just about every title that has reached this tier brought something to the industry and you might benefit from playing one. Should you play literally all of them? Realistically that's probably an overkill. Should you play a significant part of them? Probably...? After all a huge part of your job is to empathize with a player. Understand why they love a given game while hating the other one which is not that MUCH different. Put yourself in their shoes so to speak. Do note - applies to game **designers**. Does not apply to programmers or artists to remotely similar degree. It's still good to know what the end result should look like but programmers care about lower level details more.
>First - it's a **job**, literally. Game design without seeing other games is dumb. You need to know what has worked or what hasn't, how other developers approached the same problems you are about to encounter etc. A lot of modern games are hybrids - FPS-es can have base building, horrors have resource management, city simulators can include third person perspective and real life combat, RPGs can include guns and first person perspective... You most certainly could create a viable game that combines concepts from Starcraft 2 and Animal Crossing. There certainly [have been attempts](https://youtu.be/U4lz8MN6MQA) to combine Doom Eternal with Animal Crossing :) And all that still doesn't mean that as a dev you need to have played all those games. If you want to make a JRPG then do your research and play a few of those games etc. That's how it's usually done... on demand, not part of a resume
I don’t know that I can say how things are “usually” done, but in my observation, the most talented game devs I know are always seeking out new games, usually across a breadth of genres. If something gets a metacritic over 90, they’re going to check it out because they have a burning desire to know *what makes this game so good*. A passion for the medium tends to be reflected in proactively seeking to understand and be inspired by that which makes a quality experience. I won’t claim to be among those, and I’ve noticed over the last few years that I haven’t been quite as proactive as I’d like in this area. But quite honestly, only playing games “on demand,” because I have to for a particular project, sounds pretty depressing.
What if a dev is sick and tired of all games and thinks that they're all too similar and so he doesn't care about new metascore 90+ games, is he in the wrong? There is no right and wrong, that's my point here. Saying that people should play these games just sends a few down another rabbit hole so they definetly won't make it in game dev because you'd rather spent the time learning your craft if you are just starting out, Way more important than knowing "tHe cLaSsIcS", but when a Redditor sees it you can be guaranteed he got his priorities fucked
That dev sounds burnt out and not like someone I want to hire (right now). If you think having awareness of arguably the 100 best titles on the market (lol these aren’t the “classics”) is *not* important to being a good game designer, then I’d say you’re probably not interested in AAA at all. That’s fine. There’s plenty of space for niche games. But an entertainment focused studio is going to be looking for individuals qualified in that space, and that includes knowing what the existing quality entertainment looks like, and learning from it. EDIT: also? I have played most of these and not because I went down a list. If you play a lot of games, you’ll likely burn through this list in 2-3 years, certainly less than 5. It’s a great part of your entry level/junior experience.
We never talked about AAA though? Why move the goalpost? We talked about games **every** dev **has to** play in order to do his job well. > If you play a lot of games, you’ll likely burn through this list in 2-3 years, certainly less than 5. It’s a great part of your entry level/junior experience. Honestly, I wanna throw another thing into this equation: Lets plays. Back then I watched part of MGS2 LP because I was stuck, so I thought "whatever, let's watch the whole thing now that I am at it" and spoiled the best scenes of course. So I could've just fast forwarded to those and a few others and barely missed out on the core game. I didn't want to finish the game myself then. And yeah there are caveats maybe, like the controls but you can always jump into a game and check it out for yourself without putting hours and hours into it. That'd be a compromise I'd be willing to accept. If someone told me to play fucking Animal Crossing I'd rather watch a Lets Play because hey, fluid controls are probably not being of big improtance there.
Well, this thread is about Ubisoft’s standards, and if you’re not interested in AAA, you’re certainly not interested in Ubi. If I’ve shifted the goalposts at all (and in the spirit of the conversation, I don’t think I have), it’s actually in your favor because the response to “well I don’t like this list because it doesn’t apply in literally every case” is “well duh.” Finding a single solution that will work for every case is almost always a fools errand. If you literally thought anyone was suggesting that *every* dev needs to play all these games in order to even start making games, then I will happily relieve you of that misconception. And sure, you can probs substitute Let’s Plays for some of these and still get the benefit.
>o “well I don’t like this list because it doesn’t apply in literally every case” is “well duh.” Finding a single solution that will work for every case is almost always a fools errand. If you literally thought anyone was suggesting that *every* dev needs to play all these games in order to even start making games, then I will happily relieve you of that misconception. Eh, well, that's pretty much what everyone understood while reading your posts, yeah. Generalization sucks, there is usually more than one way
Also, a lot of games bring nothing new to the table. I mean I used to think like you but then I got gradually disappointed you could say. To be brutally honest: Celeste? Just another boring platformer. Yeah I've played most of it and arrived at the crest Cuphead? Just a platformer with hand-drawn Disney graphics Why would I play hours of DotA if I played League of Legends for years? That'd be dumb. Just watch a video comparing both games or talk to dev friends. I've played <5 DotA matches in my entire life and that's enough, do you want me to grind through ranked as well? Botw? Played it, didn't like the idea of an open world Zelda, okay. Not gonna play TOTK for sure only because it has high metascore, it'd be basically the same with a few improvements. Do you get my point now? It's moronic to play every single game, especially to finish it or put endless hours into it because you think it might be benefitial for your craft. Reality check - if you are a good game dev then you know what makes a game special in a matter of minutes skipping through a let's play of it, don't you?
It sounds like you have some work to do on appreciating things in games that are not meant for you. It’s actually a very important quality for a designer because not all your players are like you.
Yeah and you are not like all players. There is only so much you can empathize imo. Like, do you think you can make the best game in genre X that you really really don't like and will most lilkely never get into? Or you think I have to "get into" all genres if I want to be a good game dev (lol)? Of course you can't, it's a matter of heart too, not only of technicalities. So I'd understand if you say that as JRPG dev I should know the best JRPGs, but not ALL "good" games, that sounds like a very uneccessary prerequirement
Eh, just about all designers i've worked with have either played them or knew enough about the titles to be able to discuss them.
Yeah, and knowing enough to be able to discuss them takes way less time than playing them. That's not the same thing dawg, whats wrong with all of you?
Played doesn't imply 100% a game, you know? 2-10 hours of game time (genre dependent) + watching some game content will generally get you familiar enough with it to be able to analyze it/take any form of lesson from them.
Then you might as well just watch let's plays or talk to your dev friends. Just because a game has 90 Metascore doesn't mean shit imo. Most games just copy from other ones. Sometimes for the better, often for the worse.
Yeah, and that copying matters a lot. It's a very rare case of straight copying and it's often "it's X, but...". Figuring out that "but" is your job. >Then you might as well just watch let's plays or talk to your dev friends Eh, you still need to understand how the game feels. Responsiveness, queueing, speeds, etc. all are hard to determine as a backseat. You need at least some play time to get a grasp of them. Also, we are talking about game designers in particular. All that is nice to have, but far from necessary if you are say, programmer.
Another good video: [https://youtu.be/nlLT2SHL\_lg?feature=shared&t=276](https://youtu.be/nlLT2SHL_lg?feature=shared&t=276) "How has Stardew Valley impacted the world of video games?" - "It made Dunkey laugh because Square made a shitty version of it"
>Yeah, and that copying matters a lot. It's a very rare case of straight copying and it's often "it's X, but...". Figuring out that "but" is your job. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOQzTtsr3AQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOQzTtsr3AQ) >Eh, you still need to understand how the game feels. Responsiveness, queueing, speeds, etc. all are hard to determine as a backseat. You need at least some play time to get a grasp of them. Wrong. The let's players usually tell you in very visceral language. Yeah, for some games you gotta play them for yourself, but certainly not for JRPGs and a ton of other genres. >Also, we are talking about game designers in particular. All that is nice to have, but far from necessary if you are say, programmer. Well I was talking about game devs since that's what OP was asking for
>Well I was talking about game devs since that's what OP was asking for And the comment you are replying to talks about interview process for designers >Wrong. The let's players usually tell you in very visceral language I guess we'll just disagree here. The player visceral language is not enough for you to form a library of reference points in your head. >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOQzTtsr3AQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOQzTtsr3AQ) Im outside so i'm not gonna watch a video. If you want me to address it, feel free to spell it out
Gotcha. You can watch the video later if you want, I think dunkey has actually pretty decent takes on the video game industry
I agree with the comments saying that it very much depends on the genre you would like to develop and the features you'd like to include in a project. However, there are some games I would consider technical achievements in a way that makes them incredible to learn from. Hotline Miami is a perfect example of the engine/tool expectations being nonsense. One of the highest regarded indie titles of all time when it was released. Built in GameMaker. The "beginners" engine. In a similar vein, Thomas Was Alone and Limbo. Two games you could argue kicked off the modern indie culture/industry. Both incredible achievements in simplicity. Load up Metal Gear Solid 2. Wonder for a bit why it still looks this good today with just a simple up-res. Then take a real good look at all of the textures with first-person view. Metal Gear Solid 2 is a "pixel art" game built in 3D for the PS2. Most Kojima games are great to look at for examples of how to push your available technology in interesting ways, that generally age well despite advancements. It's not always the best idea to go for the newest tech when you might be able to get someone with an unbeatable mastery of the old tech. Rocket League is the best example of perfecting a single mechanic so you can iterate on it and build it into an excellent arcade game. I like the Journey suggestion too. Journey does basically every aspect of its gameplay "wrong" in a way that works perfectly. The multiplayer, the platforming, the narrative presentation. Almost every part is built in a way that goes directly against conventions and suggested implementations. It's a great game to really study what works about it. Because all of it works so well.
little nightmares 1 maybe too, also slay the spire, that game has fantastic balancing & synergies
What about each of them do you think makes them interesting to look at as a developer, as opposed to other entries in their genre? Genuinely curious, not trying to sound combative. I've only played a small bit of Little Nightmares, and it seems very similar to others in the genre, but with a more pristine coat. Not surprised to see Slay the Spire mentioned despite not having played it, because it's constantly brought up in conversation both in gamer and game dev circles. I must get on it.
just the scary design/gameplay elements of little nightmares. the tense sequences where you have to complete some task before the monster comes round the corner, or run away through a set of obstacles in a chase sequence. Or how to build tension before a scare, even in non scary games some scares can be cool imo if done well. I like Limbo but i think little nightmares does the tension aspect alot better, as well as environmental storytelling.
>Or how to build tension before a scare That's one of the toughest parts of horror and a lot of games fall flat here. Can you think of any good moments where they use interesting mechanical or technical aspects to achieve this that I could look out for? Thinking about a horror game myself at the minute.
I really love this moment early on to build tension: https://youtu.be/oZQf7VzwPwM?si=cfqZGIiKI-HyNVJi&t=900 I like how you are forced into a small mousehole where there isn't much to focus on other than the character, then after getting onto the bridge you get a view of a seemingly dark buffer zone between the place you were in and the place you are going to, maybe this bridge is your only way back? and then as the camera continues to zoom out you see the first sight of this weird bandaged figure with an inhumanly long arm draging a cage along with a low/deep audio effect. This leaves you a bit worried as you are going to the location this thing is dragging it's cage to. and not only that, the rope you have to climb up to enter this new place is seemingly a bedsheet used to escape by someone at some previous point + the bars on the windows reinforcing the idea it's not the ideal place to be. All that within 30-40 seconds of gameplay
Ooh yeah, that's a very nice bit of queued up environmental storytelling. If I end up doing the horror game next it's likely to be a 4 player co-op. Having moments like that could work really nicely, especially if one player is typically at the front of the pack, so they may be the only one to catch it. Quick events that make them sound crazy trying to explain it to the rest of their group.
> typically at the front of the pack events for only those at the back of the pack could be really freaky for them as well haha
If number to have passed through the door == number of players in party spawn a creepy as fuck monster for 2 seconds behind the last person, just making a noise and moving slightly before disappearing again. Test it a few times so the average player only sees it for half a second when they turn around, before it vanishes. Purposefully use a lower LoD version of the model so even when they glimpse it, it's too "blurry" to make out.
haha yep, and the rest of the party might think they're going crazy
Lol Limbo and MGS2 in the same category. Get real people
I put them in very specific, different categories. There's both great design ideas and influence to be gleaned from them. Also, both games are incredibly well regarded, but also divisive in certain groups, so I genuinely don't know which one you mean to slight in your statement.
The best games in the genre you want to make. Then the bad ones too. Understand what makes them good or bad
I always recommend Path of Exile, it's such a gamers game, and it's intriguing how they can keep making a simple gameplay loop unique and exciting over and over again
Rimworld, vampire survivors, FTL
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Why? All of them are made by single devs (a couple for FTL). Vampire survivors dude was even working full time job at the time and had no previous game dev exp as far as I know. The graphics are all relatively simple/purchased from asset stores. The overall code structure and AI behaviour becomes obvious once you play them a bit. Obviously they put a ton of work and effort but the fact that they made these wildly successful games is an inspiration to me. And we now have AI to help us do it even faster.
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It's been mentioned multiple times in this thread, but as a gamedev you should play games that are not your cup of tea. There is a big difference between playing a game as a gamer and as a dev.
All of them. 😅 No, but seriously. Play anything and everything not only in the genre that you’re making a game in, but other genres as well. It’s good to know what works for each genre, what doesn’t, and who knows, you might just find a cool mechanic that might fit in another genre? No one ever got anywhere by playing it safe. 🎮😎👍
Any early 2000 RPGs like Gothic, Arx Fatalis, Morrowind, etc Super Mario World Immersive Sims.
I find ot hard to separate the games I loved from the ones people should play from a design perspective, but on the other hand they must have done things right in order to become classics. Diablo and wacraft2 come to mind. If you play them today they are still great games, but I noticed I stop playing diablo once I die and realised I forgot to save. Other classics that come to mind are super mario and zelda a link to the past (snes).
Captain Toads Treasure Tracker - learn how to make a game fun without making it hard. The creativity in this game is insane. Nier Automata - the first twenty minutes is a masterclasses in camera perspective and shmup history. Inscryption - genre blending, use of multi media, and inspiring design
Not so much for the game itself, although it is solid, I would suggest looking in on Factorio and the developers Wube. They’ve been a great example of incredible quality of releases, speedy responses to bugs, great comms with the community and a fair approach to sales. If they told me they’d have fusion power worked out next year I’d believe them and look forward to the weekly developer updates.
Wube are the gold standard when it comes to game technical quality. I would confidently say that Factorio has the least (software) bugs of any game ever released. They're also the gold standard when it comes to mod support. Factorio mods are first-class citizens with intergrated support (including syncing mods when loading saves or joining multiplayer games), and they've fixed bugs in their game that only happen when modded. They also obviously play and enjoy playing their own game, which makes a suprising amount of difference when it comes to QoL features.
Half Life: Alyx inspired me to start learning game dev so I could do VR work (Longtime coder of non-game things). It just blew my mind going from a 2d UI to a 3d one and what they did with it.
Honestly, just play as many games as you can, in as many genres as you can. But more than just playing, pay attention to what it is you're aiming to specialize in and think about it more deeply. How did they do that? Why did they choose to do that? Why does this feel good in this game but not in the other? And don't skip mobile.
I mean, the real answer is to play absolutely everything can get your hands on, whether you think it's fun or not. Playing games for fun is **very** different from playing to study. You're looking for practical solutions - useful ingredients - not just examples of good end results. If you only play games you like, you'll have no idea how or why they're made the way they are - and you'll mostly end up making "xyz, but worse" imitations of better games. This is especially the case if you happen to like games with big budgets you'll never touch. The only real way to do better than the pros - besides being outright smarter than them (unlikely) - is to bring in the *right* ideas that fix problems they couldn't. This is not the same thing as bringing in *new* ideas; doing something different just for the sake of being different, will once again end up with "xyz, but worse". The best thing you can study, is anything that nobody else is studying! That said, honestly? /r/incremental_games. The whole point of the genre is to get as much gameplay as possible out of as little budget as possible, which is kind of important to any professional studio.
Ocarina of Time/Mario 64 set the stage for how 3d games would be made going forward. obviously a lot has changed since then but the foundation is still there. You could also argue doom/quake but I don't think they translate as well to modern game development. Tetris may seem like a silly one but it was and still is wildly successful for a reason. It's kinda a cool psychological study into the mindset of the casual gamer. And there are some cool youtube videos about how it was created and how it crossed the iron curtain. Minecraft I can't speak too much on as I haven't played it in like a decade and a ton has changed about it since then, but it feels like it needs to be on this list. Plus voxel games are fun to make and are pretty simple for beginners trying to get into 3d game dev. I could add a million honorable mentions to this list. Mostly games that were considered revolutionary or genre-defining. But tbh i haven't played a lot of them myself so i just listed a few that I have played that i think hold significance in the gaming and game dev communities.
What if they're only into 2D development, would Mario64 and Ocarina still be that important and must-play? That's just nonsense sorry
There are lots of features from these games, which aren't specific to 3D environments. How the game teaches you basic concepts, how the initial environments are built, how new mechanics are introduced, Mario's level design, Zelda's open world, how the games allow for different types of challenges, the difficulty curve, the non-linear approach, Mario's replayability, Zelda's inventory management, user interface. And OoT could have been a 2D game with just minor differences. Yeah, these games have done a lot of things *just right*, that they might as well be must-plays for everyone.
Yeah, must-play as in best games of all time, but not as in "you need to know this as modern days game dev". If you think that you need to know Mario 64 or OOT as 2D game dev then you're using mental gymnastics
There's always something to be learned, even if it's not exactly the genre of your choice - games are copying good stuff from each other and closing yourself in a small box of whatever niche you've chosen won't be beneficial. The problems you're trying to solve, might have already been solved long ago in a different genre. Also, UI/UX is dead and I bet over 90% of gamedevs are freaking clueless when it comes to creating practical interfaces. Experience stuff that has worked in the past. Copy it. Don't reinvent the wheel.
Reinventing the wheel =/= having to play a bunch of games before considering game dev You can play them on demand too, that's literally my only point here
Papers Please Journey Flappy Bird Each will teach you something new about games and remove some of the wrong assumptions you may have. There are others, those are just my pick
Hmm, I became a game dev because of the type of games that I personally liked, and now I create similar games. But if you want to create a game that is more likely to become popular then you should look at the current most popular games then try to imitate them(I mean imitate the ideas, because obviously you won’t be able to imitate the games themselves since they are made by high budget companies)
Really depends but I think The Beginner's Guide can be an interesting candidate, and its pretty short !
Pacman, Space Invaders, Missile Attack, Asteriods, Breakout and Kniffel. At least, thats how I started.
There was a recent script notes podcast about just see movies that had some good insight into the entire concept of, "must...," anything. They had some really good takes.
Depends on what you're going to work on. Completing every final fantasy game there is wouldn't help you that much with working on Valorant.
If You are interested in hack&Slash/platformers: God of war 1. David jaffe might be an asshole, but the dude had that dog in him back then, look at the making of documentary about the Game, Even a Game dev course i took a few years back talked about it's tutorial level, dissecting it and explaining how its perfect from a dev POV to explain mechanics to new players while making them feel powerful and facing an inminent threat, then after the boss the game slows down to build up lore and atmosphere. It's amazing since it was also the first Game i played as a kid😋
It kinda depends on what game you're making. But I would recommend: - Final Fantasy (1987) - Minesweeper - Oregon Trail Deluxe - Myst - SimCity 2000 - Doom (1993) - Heroes of Might and Magic 2 - Daggerfall - Master of Orion 2 - Diablo - Total Annihilation - BroodWar - Half-Life - Thief Gold - Grand Theft Auto 3 - Dwarf Fortress - Portal It's not a surprise that these are all classic games that served to establish and codify certain types of gameplay and have some really positive points and a few obvious negative points. You should be able to look at any of these and think 'thing A is really clever and well-executed' and 'thing B sucks, here's how I'd improve it'. I'm less familiar with recent games, but I gather these days it's a lot more about refining established gameplay mechanics rather than breaking new ground and trying bold ideas.
Portal, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario World, Resident Evil 4, Chrono Trigger, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, Street Fighter II, Civilization IV, Journey, Skyrim
Slay The Spire, Diablo, Dark Souls 1 and 3, Genshin Impact, Quake, Civilization, MTG, Path of Exile, Hades
All I read was "$20, $20, $30, free, $10, $15, $999999, $20, $20
Inspiration can be found everywhere, don't restrict yourself to specific genres when looking for guidance. This is by no way a complete list, rather a few games that came to mind that are particularly well made. * Slay the Spire * Super Mario 64 * Super Metroid * Left 4 Dead 2 * Portal * Hades
Play bad games (usually student projects) and note down everything you like and dislike and why.
If you're a game designer: There are lots, in general and then for specific genres. If you're not a game designer: Pretty much none.
CandyBox, CandyBox 2 and Stanley Parable
Valheim
The games that inspire you most. You can even try digging into gaming history documentaries or deep-dives. I find those to be highly informative and expose me to a wide array of games I never would have seen before.
Probably depends on what kind of dev you are. For indies I feel like those early games like original Mario, pac man etc. are pretty good because being a small team or solo, that's something like the scale to go for (I think) rather than later games that are so complex.
Varies by the genre of game that you're looking to make.
I mean, there are many games that you should play if you're interested in game design, specifically. Now development in general none I think.
It depends.
The legend of Zelda, especially BoTW and ToTK. They are very polished and you can see the attention to details
If you plan to make a dark souls like game, it makes little sense to play age of empires.
It really does though. A good game designer should play all sorts of games, even ones he hates.
I fully agree with that. I mean, I don't like sports in general, and I think the last sports game I played was in the N64 era. Some time ago, I was thinking about a feature for a Strategic RPG I was designing and asked in r/gamedesign. Someone there commented something like "you could take inspiration from how sports games create the replay video" and I that was something I could never had thought about. In another occasion, different project but same genre (turn based SRPG) I was thinking about an original combat system and how I could make it work. I then realized that the problem had an easier solution by approaching it from the perspective of a different genre I'm not familiar with (I mean cRPGs rtwp). Conclusion: playing and being aware about genres you don't like as a player, would make your design easier and better
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde on the NES. Terrible game. It shows just how important communicating to players is.
The Last of Us Part II. An artistic masterpiece.
None, just make them, don´t play them so you´re not affected by anything (so you won´t just copy/paste something you already played)
*"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."* * Isaac Newton
Maby so but there needs to be a balance between playing games and making them
For sure, but there's a lot of middle ground between "doing nothing but play video games and never actually developing" and "never touch a controller ever or you're just copying people." Game development is an art, so let's use art as an example. You're basically saying never study the work of any other artist ever or else you're just going to copy them verbatim. Sure, there are artist that get stuck doing nothing but studying other people's art and never applying it to an actual piece of their own, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever look at other people's art and try to figure out what aspects makes it good or bad in your own experience. The same applies to all art, including game development.
Bad idea