Best Game Design Quotes

"This is unreal, I have no words. This island, it's got a law, it's got more backstory than the game it's built on."

"It's only by developing a better understanding of how games can manipulate our psychology for good that we can come to understand and appreciate why our favorite games work so effectively."

"Elden Ring has beautiful, respectful difficulty."

"I'm just thankful we have games like Tear Down and Control... that push physics and... can be an interesting gameplay feature."

"Mirror's Edge is a classic example... The best."

"Warren Spectre wanted to make a game where choice was king, one where the player could play how they wanted and still reach the end."

"This card's really well designed. I love this card. This is the type of cards that make me really appreciate some of Hearthstone's design."

"This game has so many like common sense solutions to a lot of problems people have had with ARPGs for like 10 years."

"It is just such an amazing quality of life feature and practically eliminates one of the main issues I have with many loot games."

"You can make and play or run a game as deep or as shallow or as simple or as robust as you want to."

"The sense of scale portrayed in this game is stellar."

"The main goal for Avalanche's future projects hinged on player freedom."

"This was a seed, that sprouted the roots of city builders, 4X strategy, real-time strategy, and god games."

"Few games approach the level of tinkering and innovation that Black & White begs you to experiment with."

"Black & White was clearly a passion project."

"Crest’s stylized graphics were made to look like abstract African tribal art, and its inspired spin on the genre is a joy to tinker with."

"God games weren’t just a flavor-of-the-week trend we saw come and go, they’re a beautiful idea, devised to inspire creativity in their players, to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking, and have been innovated upon and reimagined for over 30 years."

"I’d rather have a game that tries to do its own thing even if that means it won’t always be successful."

"This is a very fluid and very competently put together game."

"In terms of flavor, these decks are fantastic. As a fan of the Fallout series, I really feel that a lot of effort and care went into both the flavor and aesthetic of these cards."

"Making a game hard doesn't necessarily make the game fun."

"A fighting game that is perfectly balanced would be terrible. Every character would feel the same, and so would the matches."

"Look, I could have added things to make it easier, but I think making it harder is probably going to be more enjoyable to watch and potentially to play."

"The more you get rid of that line between gameplay and story, the closer you get to creating a separate universe."

"Dark Souls altered the landscape of game design in every conceivable way."

"The overwhelming focus is cinematic, but rather than do what movies often do and jump from critical scene to critical scene, the game intensely elaborates those scenes into sprawling, hours-long, multifaceted set pieces."

"Mythic Garrosh was probably the most fairly balanced and well-designed final bosses I've ever had the pleasure of trying."

"Environmental storytelling makes some very impressive promises, and it's hard not to see why the technique has become more and more widespread."

"It's entirely possible to convey incredible thematic and narrative depth through the architecture of a game's levels themselves."

"Something a little bit different that keeps that core feeling of collecting, evolving, and making friends with these creatures."

"The bullet hell section and the menu choice... you're aiming to create a challenge for the player that makes them weigh up their choices."

"A good challenge-based game thrives on this."

"The genocide run caught on because the feeling you get from the word genocide best represents the brutality of it all."

"You can see a lot of clever things that are designed to help it; all the bullets move in an easily identifiable pattern."

"The Jackbox Party Pack’s design is supremely inclusive, and makes it the ultimate party game."

"Cuphead’s animations are second to none, and through knowing when to use and when to break some of the 12 principles of animation, MDHR has made a game that looks amazing, and plays even better."

"The skill in games design is to find that Goldilocks zone where a game is challenging and rewarding while not being frustrating to the point of making a player quit."

"Is it possible to design a game to be worse and yet in doing so actually make the players' long-term experience of it better?"

"This somewhat subtle change makes Dark Souls very deliberate, and forces you to consider every move carefully."

"The massively part of the acronym seems to relate to both the player base size and the potential to interact with them in the game world at random, not the social need or demand to party up to experience the majority of the game."

"Every time we started holding the player accountable in any way, every time we did that, it felt better."

"Also, remember that good games can have bad graphic design and vice versa."

"This game's being designed with so many great RP features to really add that extra level of immersion."

"Character designs, facial animations, the quality of The Voice work, the cutscene Direction, the art design...all of this is a straight 10."

"The idea started to pour in like having fire trucks respond to fires and then being able to steal those fire trucks, switch on their sirens, and clear traffic."

"What makes a shooter feel good? Consistency."

"It is quite physically impossible to have NPCs deep enough for a social sim while also still be disposable enough for a stealth assassination game."

"This is a very special game that says a lot about how to write and deliver immersive storytelling and how to build and entrench deep pen-and-paper inspired RPG systems."

"Having failure be as meaningful as success is an important lesson in RPG design that I expect many games will emulate in future."

"No game to this point has managed to recreate so faithfully the voice of the dungeon master, simultaneously guiding you through an adventure whilst throwing up roadblocks at every turn."

"Knowing anything in your game is optional and buyable means you need to make it desirable."

"The DS’ stylus controls didn’t just benefit existing genres by making them easier to play, it also invited entirely new ways of designing games in those genres."

"Chrono Trigger harmonizes these disciplines with mathematical precision."

"Games are the only force in the known universe that can get people to take actions which are against their self-interest in a predictable way without the use of force."

"We wanted to make it fun for a single player."

"When it's done very well, the player feels very engaged, they're paying attention, they think about what they want to do, they feel satisfaction and the sting of making sacrifices along the way."

"More branching is better than bigger branches - it's more interesting to have little ways to alter the story."

"What needs to be in the game is a proper system that teaches the mechanics to the player in useful and meaningful ways."

"Something can be both difficult and have a good suite of accessibility features."

"A meaningful progression system that rewards both the casual and die-hard community of a game is something that I feel is just incredibly important in any kind of video game."

"The real secret to making a game world feel truly alive and tangible is the people."

"One of the more benign tricks of game design is the way games attempt to naturally introduce concepts and challenges in a low-pressure environment."

"I'm always a fan when the creators make every lap different rather than the same loop three times."

"Don't forget about player freedom when writing."

"We're actually not looking for a super deep, incredible, the highest of art experience; what we're looking for is a big, cool world where really cool archetypical stuff happens with a few nice twists here and there."

"I love when Bungie dedicates this much to a quest, I think it makes the game feel more alive than just buying exotics from a kiosk."

"Designing World of Warcraft with an eye towards 15 years of history and many more years to follow, we can't afford to just think about today."

"The visual style, soundscape, and sense of immersion are what really grabbed me here."

"Over a third of my life has been spent thinking about Kratos and what he can do. I literally have dreams about it."

"Expansive RPGs are not bad at all; they just need to respect my time."

"Red Dead Redemption set a precedent for not only all Rockstar games moving forward but all open-world games."

"By drawing just five wonky circles and two dots, this man single-handedly ensured that no Japanese role-playing enthusiast would ever have to fight anything as boring as a level one rat ever again."

"The big thing that I took away from Red Dead Redemption 2 was focus."

"To make a world that's actually highly constrained because it is a video game, after all, and make it feel as though it is utterly unconstrained, is really a remarkable feat."

"As I played it more, I really began to appreciate the enemy placement, the music, the aesthetic, the themes. It's just a beautiful game from all aspects."

"These are important enough that you could simply mainline the whole massively linear main quest line and not have to worry about engaging with side content."

"The exploration facet of the game is even arguably better and more robust than some of the main puzzle dungeons in the world."

"Good looking graphics do not necessarily equal good gameplay."

"You can make Classics like a Bowser fight on the bridge, or you can still make hot garbage like thwomps coming from off-screen."

"Dynamic rivalries that can adapt to situations, injuries that are random with different return times, and branching cutscenes that could change the way the storylines go along with choices that creates new storylines could help fix the problem of a linear and repetitive Universe Mode."

"Players can be moral or immoral by choice rather than having morality imposed on them by the game."

"Nomura felt that Disney had some of the few characters that could rival Mario in popularity."

"The vision for New World is that we wanted to create a world where PvP and PvE players wouldn't just coexist but they'd complement each other."

"I will take good level design over an open feeling world I'll have to backtrack through constantly every single time."

"Dark Souls 1 is a great game for many of the games to marvel at, not just a barometer for future Souls games."

"Elden Ring was a game that was both innovative in its game design and also in its world design but more than anything, it was a game that provided a significant amount of value to the player."

"The game is focusing so much on the systems because the moment-to-moment combat on Diablo 4 is fun."

"We want players to have those moments of excitement when an item drops but then also be able to invest and grow their item so it becomes something more personalized and meaningful."

"Itemization is arguably the most singular important aspect of an ARPG."

"Music's everything, man. And this game understands that so much."

"Everyone always says, 'Oh, Pokémon needs a hard mode. Pokémon needs to have a difficulty setting.' And I honestly don't think that that's true at all."

"I think the answer is just giving people a lot of options for how they can play a game."

"The best game design in my view is the one that provides the largest net total of happiness."

"Learning to consciously understand and apply story structure is a powerful way of crafting memorable and engaging game experiences."

"Understand what emotion your game is trying to evoke."

"The details are where your player falls in love with your game."

"Allow your players to have a sense of ownership."

"Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win."

"Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them."

"The visual design of the game's cut scenes is extremely good, striking you actually want to see them continue to interact with one another."

"Obviously, a big factor will be how fun the levels are, but also since these are supposed to be the top 100 levels Mario Maker 2 has to offer, aesthetics, creativity, and theme are all major factors."

"Genie is capable of converting a variety of different prompts into interactive, playable environments."

"Imagine controlling a shark or dolphin in this papercraft world... the promise of this paper is that as you move left, right, up, down, or make jumping motions, the world is crafted around you."

"It's the combination of visuals, performance, handling, audio, and design that all work hand in hand to create something memorable."

"The concept of essential NPCs is not something Obsidian understands, which is good."

"I enjoyed the experience of exploration, and a lot of that came down to just how well the demo was designed."

"Expand players' imaginations, bring challenge back to Destiny, enrich our content, and connect our Guardians."

"What happens when you combine elements of Anno 1800, Tropico, SimCity 4, and City Skylines? Well, you get Highrise City, a resource and logistics focused city builder."

"We felt that certain optional areas in Hell difficulty often get ignored, so we decided to increase their monster levels to add more incentives with risk versus reward gameplay."

"Super Meat Boy is a perfectly tuned Swiss watch of hardcore platforming action."

"The goal of Xavier's movement design is to create a character that feels more limitless than the characters without an air dash."

"I think Wingspan is important for two major reasons. One, it brought a female designer to the limelight like we have not seen for a long time."

"It's actually a competent game in its own right."

"The opening hours marked the height of the storytelling and decision-making on display."

"The monsters look so cool. I just can't get over it."

"Change and variety are very important elements in game design that affect the game's staying power over time."

"I don't mind the meta changing, I think it's fine. But, if it happens more often... that would keep the game a little bit more fresh."

"You feel like the game is playing you more than you playing the game."

"I don't want to feel like I'm being cattle prodded along a path."

"I don't care if some people don't like farming sheep; this game made it fun."

"As the great Sauron Johnson said, given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game."

"Video game economic systems are designed primarily to be fun to engage with for the player... not to accurately model a real economy, which is none of those things."

"Games are about getting a player a very rich decision to make, and having a world where that decision is meaningful and leads to very interesting unpredictable outcomes."

"Mechanically speaking, gameplay-wise, it is just a really, really awesome game. Tons of fun to play, it looks great, and that extra year they took to refine everything really paid off."

"It's not enough to just have a game that plays really great and is mechanically very sound; you need the progression to keep players hooked for the long term."

"Progression systems aren't getting worse; they're more ruthlessly effective than ever. We're just getting bored of seeing the same ones used to provide the same experiences over and over again."

"We need to celebrate games that use progression systems to provide fun, interesting experiences we want to play more of, rather than just using them to pad out playtime and microtransaction revenue metrics."

"It's impressive how big it is, and like, there's stuff here, but it's all the same stuff just copied and pasted over and over, so it's like fake stuff."

"Mass Effect 1 perfectly interweaved its current plot and overarching plot in a way that was not only able to expand the world of the mass effect universe but also get us excited as to what would come next."

"Difficulty was never the goal. What we set out to do was strictly to provide a sense of accomplishment."

"Knowledge is arguably the most important asset in a horror game, and taking some of it away can create something truly horrifying."

"The combat system in this game is the best combat system that Naughty Dog has ever done. Yes, it is unbelievably rewarding."

"Like the film before it, Alien Isolation doesn't rely on simple cues to frighten viewers but is more spontaneous, by making use of its lighting, level design, environment, and AI that's championed to this day."

"Alien Isolation marks as a great example of what a game adaptation of a film can be like, not only staying true to its source material but expanding on it."

"The dichotomy that Intelligent Systems is creating between the two is fascinating."

"All of these elements make for an incredibly intriguing game."

"You never quite know exactly what's going to happen, and that's given this game a huge amount of replayability."

"There's actually a lot hidden within [Scandinavia] which could make for a well-rounded Pokémon region."

"One of the big influences I had when thinking of things for this hypothetical region... Scandinavia is the home of the Vikings."

"It comes down to the wire every time. It's brilliant game making."

"The solution to moving around in the map is not adding fast travel, it's to make traveling fun."

"This game, to me, was an absolutely monumental success in achieving every aspect they set out to achieve."

"Cut down on time managing mods, remove limitations that created confusing experiences."

"SOCOM III's design shift was controversial; its large maps and vehicle inclusion marked a departure from the series' tactical roots."

"There are some core functions that always stay with them, and if you are a creator in some way, there is a part of the game, there is something that you fell in love with at the beginning... it's really worth figuring out what that is and just keeping that."

"I think that the race to world first and Blizzard's fixation on creating competitive content has ruined the game."

"The problem with pay for convenience in games is that they then create a financial incentive for developers to make it inconvenient to not pay."

"Mission structure and assassinations seem to offer a lot more freedom."

"The world feels so much more alive and realistic when the non-playable characters can develop stories of their own without our input."

"Inventing new games is about breaking free from a world of clone after clone."

"We wanted the player to feel satisfied, not challenged."

"The big unknown is the end game loop... How fun is it to play this game for many hours, for many months, for many years?"

"The most important aspect for your dungeon ending...is that your dungeon ending must be the combination of your theme and your mechanics."

"Nintendo has really mastered how to use expressive mechanics, mechanics that can be used in a lot of ways and give players the freedom to improvise and adapt to a variety of scenarios."

"It feels like gold is valuable in the game... it seems like gold actually has a very thoughtful value that seems to scale as your character does."

"Most of the DLC maps, or I should say mid-season maps, are way better. They introduced some CoD 4 and original Modern Warfare 2 maps to the rotation and, surprise surprise, end up being some of the best maps in the game."

"The game was well received by critics, many of them enjoying the satisfaction of creating their own maps."

"Pillars of eternity is a bit like an experiment that tries to combine the best parts of the past with the best parts of the present."

"Disco Elysium proves maybe you don't need combat if you can do other things well enough."

"We've tried to think about fun for you, whether you like to play with your friends or you like to play alone."

"We've created a rich sandbox where you can define your own win condition."

"BO3 is truly a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

"Origins is a traditional survival map with an insane hidden quest underneath the surface."

"With it being a role-playing game, you want there to be decisions that matter."

"This is what I mean when I say Gold and Silver were probably the closest thing to the team's original vision that we'll ever get."

"The levels in Souls games are interesting aesthetically, structurally, narratively as well."

"The souls games all care about views, maybe because they like making the player feel small or part of something greater."

"Every facet of the game, from the intricacies of the level design to the visuals, difficulty, and yes, obviously the music, is meticulously crafted to elicit the same emotions that Madeline experiences throughout the story."

"We really enjoy creating enemies, monsters, and demonic creatures that bring out an emotional response from our players."

"Adventure Quest operates on sitcom logic: characters start the same, have an adventure, end the same."

"How do you make your games fun? Pro tip for anyone who's just getting into game design professionally: we don't like the word 'fun' very much because it's too amorphous, too broad, too hard to define what exactly you mean."

"Game design rules are personal, not universal."

"You can think of your game design rules like a deck of cards that we, as game designers, can choose to play and deploy when the time is right."

"I think the weather in this game is really well done, whether it be a rainstorm or just some fog."

"Love it or hate it, spell making was a huge feature in the old games and its removal from Skyrim bothered some people."

"Why do anything if it does nothing? We need destruction in our games in order to see the effect our decisions have around us."

"The stories of New Eden's characters are so good that I would have been totally content with a more simplified combat model."

"The atmosphere went from this bright and beautiful aesthetic to cold and eerie."

"The fact that you have to cross over the entire level is what puts this above the last two. What a great concept for a moon and what perfect execution."

"The story mode in Injustice is excellent. Most of the time, a fully-fledged out story is something that's put on the cutting room floor when it comes to fighting games."

"I'm not asking for realism in fighting game animations; I'm asking it to sell me."

"Once you're armed with a killer story, terrifying difficulty level, and 'bring the pain' attitude, sit down and plan the thing up."

"Mario Kart takes the ideas of rubber banding but shifts the perspective to better suit a multiplayer environment."

"But with something like 'Mass Effect' where a lot of the things you can do have severe consequences on the story and characters, taking the player's choice away in the end of the game, the conclusion, sucks."

"Rockstar Games did so much right with this game, various elements in my opinion being perfected, which includes the design of the open-world, the musical soundtrack, graphics, the narrative, character development, and the mystery throughout the world of RDR 2."

"Basically, EA is being accused of designing these games so that players constantly feel like they are below par, like they're not competitive enough, so that they feel like they have to keep gambling for those rewards in order to rise up through the ranks."

"The game puts a strong emphasis on fun first, and that is exactly the right impulse when dealing with such larger-than-life characters."

"Instead of putting out surveys... just play your game."

"Portal incorporates a locked cell, countdown, ironic music, safety glass, and a glitchy sarcastic robot, combining for a sense of unease."

"Bioshock was a towering feat of video game artistry. Okay, that's a given."

"This would mean this content seems less like a checklist that the player is meant to complete, and more like optional stuff designed for players to stumble into as they explore the map."

"Diablo 3 is a dopamine-abusing power trip crafted by the developers to suck players into playing indefinitely and keep them hypnotized until the game burns up in its own searing blaze of light."

"Much of what's charismatic about Half-Life is built on the foundation of the game's opening levels, a slow ratcheting of apprehension and dread that invariably sticks with anyone who's played the game."

"Half-Life 2 is especially remarkable in how it continually shifts from one mode of play into another in a way that never feels obvious and always feels welcome."

"Neither choice should be wrong, and the important thing is that neither choice can be wrong while still preserving player agency and giving weight to the decision."

"I came to respect Black Mesa more because of these differences, because of the confidence needed to say the game needs these changes to feel right, and to be right about that."

"The castle itself... was more than just a hub for you to access levels - it had theming, as well as secret stars accessible with some clever thinking."

"The difficulty in playing your game should come from using the skills they have, not understanding how the game works."

"It's very simple but I think it's very effective. It tells you what the game is, shows you a screenshot of the video... that's all I really wanted out of it."

"The word 'linear' seems to translate into bad game design nowadays, but I don't think there's anything wrong at all with a heavily curated story experience."