When I started researching Game Design, one name came up in 90% of the results: Mark Brown and his YouTube channel "Game Maker's Toolkit."
With over 200 videos (230 at the time of writing, to be precise), he develops his thinking around two main angles:
« How to which covers the technical principles and best practices of Game Design (His most-viewed video is actually on this very topic, as it's a Unity game creation tutorial.)
« How did they do it , which explores how studios & designers applied specific choices & mechanics to their games.
What makes his channel so strong is the way he approaches concepts: he doesn't try to cover everything at once, but instead focuses on the intersection of two aspects of a game. That might be a mechanic and the problem it solves, or a gameplay element and player psychology.
Case study
Take two videos I particularly enjoyed, both tackling the same question: How do you keep players in your game without frustrating them?
How to Keep Players Engaged (Without Being Evil)
In this video, Game Design mechanics are highlighted to show how player interest can be sustained through pure gameplay elements.
Three elements stand out:
Pacing first, with the alternation between intensity and quieter moments, avoiding both mental exhaustion and boredom.
Curiosity, kept alive through novelty, mysteries, or the promise of a new ability or unexplored area just beyond the next zone.
And finally progression, or that sense of mastery that grows as challenges balance out with the player's skills.
How Designers Protect Players From Themselves
Here, he shows how designers can choose to leverage player psychology to keep them engaged.
Left to their own devices, players will naturally try to optimize and find the most efficient strategy, then stick to it, and inevitably end up bored.
The goal, then, is to decide for them, while still giving them the feeling that they're in control.
Forcing a playstyle through punishing constraints mostly generates frustration (Souls-likes aside, but that's a whole other topic).
The more widely used approach? Positive reinforcement: by rewarding aggression, creativity, and risk-taking, designers indirectly guide the player, nudging them to keep exploring the game.
Conclusion
In short, if you're interested in Game Design (whether out of curiosity or with the ambition to create), Game Maker's Toolkit is an accessible starting point and, if I'm being honest, a pretty addictive one.
Technical craft, player psychology, storytelling through gameplay: layers that are invisible to the untrained eye, yet were always present in the games I played, without me ever really asking how or why.
Well, now I can recognize certain patterns and mechanisms. Thanks, Mark Brown!
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