As much as we might not think about it in the heat of the moment, someone, somewhere created the game that you’re currently trying to win. From Sims to Call of Duty to old fashioned Tetris, someone is responsible for creating the game that you love so much.
Ever wished you could be a game designer yourself? Not only is this a real job with a real solar to match, it’s a well-paying one that is growing in popularity amongst up and coming professionals.
Just like anything else in the corporate world, though, game design takes education, experience, patience and a whole lot of passion for your love of the virtual world. More and more institutions and courses are popping up online to help you see that the theory of gaming can be studied and perfected so that you can create a stunning game that will capture the minds, hearts and controllers of gamers everywhere.
If you’re ready for that person to be you, you’ll want to take a look at some of the best all lessons and their theories to make sure that you are going about it the right way. Here are the top website lessons to help you see just how intense and rewarding an education in game design and theory can be.
6 Websites to Learn Game Design and Theory Lesson Online Reviews
1) MasterClass Will Wright Teaches Game Design and Theory
There’s no better place that you can look at to start other than any introduction to everything. This is certainly going to fit the bill. The design of the class is to help you understand what goes into a game physically as well as emotionally and mentally.
Even if you consider yourself to be a professional gamer that knows all there is to know about games, you’re wrong. This course helps you to understand that you have to understand the gaming from a physical computer perspective (graphics, design, coding, etc) and from a psychological and user based experience too (storyline, emotional realism, etc).
All of the theories, concepts and angles are studied in this introductory class so that you can get a feel for how they all work together as well las how each element is going to be important as a key part of the gaming equation. This is a course intended to push you and make you look at gaming differently.
To finish off in terms of a round education, you’ll come full circle back to the idea of game psychology. But this is going to be much deeper and more intense than the fundamentals course you were looking at as #1.
This is designed to help you take what you know and create a game that is going to grab the player’s attention and hold it for hours and hours, day after day so that they can think of nothing else.
Sound familiar?
Exactly, we’ve all had that kind of thought process when it comes to a game we’re playing, and this course is going to help you learn how to inspire and foster it in someone else within your own game. This will give you the support and confidence to go out and make a stunning creation of your own from scratch and know it’ll be a hit.
2) Udemy - The Psychology of Color in Game Design & Development
Now is the about the time where you’re going to start putting pieces together. This course may seem specific in how to create colour in game design and employing proper color schemes in the right areas of the game itself, but it’s a lot more than that. This brings us back to the psychological element of gaming and applies it specifically to what the player is going to be seeing.
Does the colour engage them? Does it look familiar to their world, yet foreign enough to be intriguing and keep their interest? Do you know how to create color palettes in order to elicit the right emotion and though process from your player?
All of this is discussed in stunning detail so that you can go back to lesson #2 and make sure that you have got the right colours, textures and shading in use to get the effect you’re going for.
3) Lynda.com - Designing The Game
When you’ve got a solid understanding for the basis of gaming from both a designer and a professional planner’s perspective, you’re going to want to want to make your next stop the actual game designing process.
After all, without properly honed skills that are intended to create a well-thought out and planned game, your other education in game theory is useless.
This website-based course is focused on the beginner and it is going to walk you through all of the steps that you need to think about specifically in relation to game design itself. This is focused on, of curse, the technical aspects.
You’ll learn how to create 2D game elements, animate objects, create terrain geometry, import and configure models or textures and a whole lot course. This is a wonderful, supportive online course that will break everything down to its basic building blocks so that you can understand every micro-step required to create a rich and professional quality game that is going to impress all players.
4) Coursera - Introduction to Game Design
If you like what you’re seeing with the widespread intro courses for video game design, you’ll find that this classic introductory course is going to offer you more benefits.
This particular program is well-loved and has had over 50 000 students enrolled, proving that it certainly could be the prime program to trust for an immersive and education experience.
As you could have guessed from the name, this course is designed as a general educational introduction to the world of gaming from the perspective of a game designer.
It’s great for those who are looking for something that doesn’t require any amount of previous experience. This is going to help you understand the role of game design, the importance of game design, and also how taking both into consideration is going to help you to enjoy a proper education in making your very own game.
This course puts a lot of its focus on four large-worth assignments that will all focus on the main components of the course. Unlike a lot of online courses that focus more on the lecture and sample format, this focuses on bringing the student into the lesson and is a great option for those that tend to work better by engaging with the lesson itself. These are designed to be done at home on paper so that you can look back at the assignments at a later date if you are trying to remember something.
Well loved by aspiring game designers of all ages and video game backgrounds, this will lead you down a professional path of understanding everything from what a game is, to how it’s designed, to what makes one successful or not.
It’s focused on helping you understand the public’s interaction with games so that you can use all of this to hep you make a great one when you are ready to put your skills to work.
5) SkillShare - Unity Basics: A Monetised Android/iOS Game in 4 Hours
Something a little different for those who are looking for a way to really enjoy a truly modern and constantly adapting game deign is the thought of a phone games. You know the ones that have gained popularity, including Flappy Birds and Words with Friends.
Well, these two fantastic apps are great for bringing in a significant amount of money via monetized ads every single day. Plus, they bring the gaming action directly to customers how they want to enjoy them.
Don’t get us wrong, there’s still plenty of popularity with traditional game consoles and controllers, but mobile-based games are also a great way to focus your skills, too, especially if you are a particular lover of smartphone games yourself.
It can be hard to figure out what makes games like these so popular. This course will dive into the details of what their core concepts are and how to make them work for you. You’ll be able to learn about mobile set-up. Camera movement, score system, level generation.
Menu design and animations and, of course, monetization design. After all, it’s al well and good to make a great mobile app game, but you want to make sure that the players will want to play it and that you can use it to earn some cash.
Full of information specific to the idea of creating and enjoying mobile games, this course is unafraid to dive into the technical details for both Android and iOS so that you can learn how to create worthwhile, fun and addictive games for both mobile phone operating systems.
Taking you from the basic building blocks to the final creation of the game design itself — complete with monetization techniques safely hidden within the game so that they aren’t obtrusive to users — you’ll be able to enter the mobile gaming world on your own terms with this course as a great one-stop option to get you there.
6) Superprof: Learn/Improve 3D Modelling And 3D Printing
When you’re ready to get into some of the prime and proper details as far as the 3D modelling goes, you’ll find that the experienced professionals will be able to offer you targeted expertise specifically in your area.
For example, this tutor for hire is an experienced professional that specializes in 3D modelling as well as 3D printing. This experience has been able to help all sorts of top tier artists, illustrators and anyone else that wants to know a bit more about how the gaming process works in great detail.
This course is offered by a professional within the art world. He has a diploma and many years of experience to back up his claims. When you are looking for the right professional guide to help you out specifically with learning and improving 3D modelling for your video game, this course is it.
Focus areas can include 3DS Max 2019 and Blender 2.80. These lessons are by the hour so that you can use the time to really dive into specific details that are relevant to the game.
You can have your choice for a single lesson (the first one is free!) Or you can look at signing up for a small block of 5 or 10 lessons. These blocks offer you a discounted rate on straight hourly lesson rate, so it’s great to consider when you need to save some cash.
Full of knowledge and expertise in many 3D modelling subsections, you’re guaranteed to learn something new about this immersive and complex part of video game creation.
The trick will then be making sure that you effectively put it to work in your game. This is a wonderful, nice-specific lesson option that will give you guidance on the creation of proper 3D modelling for your game, however it may evolve. Need more advice? You can go back for lessons as often as you need to.
Choosing the Best Game Design and Theory Lesson Online
Not too many think much about psychology and its role within game design and theory, but there is a huge connection between the two.
If you want to be the professional who is pushing all of the right buttons to create that immersive and successful video game of the future, these examples of website-based courses are going to give you accessibility to expert educations and relevant examples that will help you create a rich future in your future video game.