This Is Important

I just finished listening the Clyde‘s interview with Vincent from GenCon – Theory From the Closet interview w/Vincent Baker.

A lot of good stuff to think about, specifically the fact that holy crap, there still isn’t anywhere to go to learn about how to design a goddamn game.

The Forge was really good at hammering out WHY to design a game. Story Games Praxis might have some potential (he says as someone who keeps not keeping up with it). Glyphpress Game Design Studio is pretty decent for production aspects. And there’s the Design Patterns of Successful Roleplaying Games (which is now wikified, cool!)

These are all really good resources for people who have, as Vincent says in the interview, “been struggling to design a game for the last 10 years.” But for new folks, where are you supposed to go?

On a related but tangential point, these are all places that I have been increasingly blah about because I feel like the conversations are endless retreads of material that’s been clear to me since, oh, 2006 or so. Which is why my game design process tends to involve personal friends who I know are on the same page with me, it’s just more productive for my process. But, you’ll also notice, that I’ve basically been working on the same game since 2008. Related, I think so!

There’s something in the air, and (to quote Vincent again) “we can finally start talking about actual game design.” And that’s pretty exciting.