I think about the second tip a lot. When getting advice from other designers when playtesting, you'll always get advice from them that matches their catalogue of games, and you can get an idea if you're trying to design something similar to them or not, for how useful it is. I made 18 card games exclusively for a period of time, and would often get the advice to just add more cards, even though it betrays the genre. Sometimes you have to stick to your guns, and sometimes you have to break a box to make a game its best possible version!
@@MatthewDunstan I'm kinda the same, Except it's usually like "I'd change it to be like this if your intended audience is [age range], or change it more like this if your intended audience is [different older age range]"
Excellent video Matt - great to see you sharing tips in a short form video like this! (Enjoyed your longer “chats” in the past too). One tip: take care with shaking the camera! The first section was slightly wobbly! Not enough to be distracting. Looking forward to seeing more :)
Thank you so much Adam! Means a lot coming from you :) And yes - I realised about halfway through regarding the wobbles - won't make that mistake again!
I particularly appreciate the reminder that you don’t need to have a full game in mind. I’m about to experiment with a mechanic for a bigger game I have in mind….I mean, on the table! 😅
Congrats on designing full-time! I've "finished" a few things over the years but not as many as I would have liked to. And even though publishing isn't the real reason I design, I still really want to. New sub :)
Great video - looking forward to hearing more! Some excellent advice to be starting off with, and you could probably get a whole series of videos drilling down further into each of those points!
Great tips and advice! Thanks! Only two notes: 1: Would it be possible to have a slide or text come up summarising each point in future videos? Having the text on the screen can help more visual people like me :-) 2: I feel personally called out my top three hahaha I’m trying to finish stuff, I promise! 😂
Love that you're aussie and also have credits under your belt. such a great resource. Would love to watch you document a complete 0-1 as a series, showing where and how you start and how you approach building from there.
As a complete newcomer to game design with a single idea and very little direction to go with, this video has given me the motivation to at least table some cards and pretend I'm the player agents just to see it in motion. Or at the very least, it's making me want to do this with a game in the genre i'm expecting this game to be just to at least get some experience seeing the point of view of two players having a mock-game. At the minimum, it'll just get me to understand the ins & out of trick-taking a little better even if nothing else comes out of it.
Great advice and it's awesome to have another voice on this subject. Definitely looking forward to future videos!
I think about the second tip a lot. When getting advice from other designers when playtesting, you'll always get advice from them that matches their catalogue of games, and you can get an idea if you're trying to design something similar to them or not, for how useful it is. I made 18 card games exclusively for a period of time, and would often get the advice to just add more cards, even though it betrays the genre. Sometimes you have to stick to your guns, and sometimes you have to break a box to make a game its best possible version!
Absolutely. Its something I try to be mindful of when I'm giving playtesting feedback - how does it fit with the game the designer is trying to make?
@@MatthewDunstan I'm kinda the same, Except it's usually like "I'd change it to be like this if your intended audience is [age range], or change it more like this if your intended audience is [different older age range]"
A great video. I experience as you say it starts with one idea and after some time it changes and it is suddenly a different game.
this is so uplifting and encouraging. thank you!
Really glad this got recommended to me. I’ve been sort of working on something and this was a nice push to make some more progress!
Excellent video Matt - great to see you sharing tips in a short form video like this! (Enjoyed your longer “chats” in the past too).
One tip: take care with shaking the camera! The first section was slightly wobbly! Not enough to be distracting.
Looking forward to seeing more :)
Thank you so much Adam! Means a lot coming from you :) And yes - I realised about halfway through regarding the wobbles - won't make that mistake again!
Excellent, to the point advice. Thanks!
Great tips! Hope you make a lot more videos like this. Getting the ideas out of my head onto the table, that’s my new goal🫧
Great video! I really like that you have made it a bit philosophical/life-coaching (touching many aspect beyond game design).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I particularly appreciate the reminder that you don’t need to have a full game in mind. I’m about to experiment with a mechanic for a bigger game I have in mind….I mean, on the table! 😅
Thank you for making this! I love the Next Station games, I need to check out more of your designs!
Of course you encourage making your own game and only taking the advice that resonates (at the time). Nice pre-bunking. :)
Great video, thanks for sharing your knowledge, Matthew.
Thanks for explaining so eloquently how ideas are easy, completing the process is difficult... and necessary.
Congrats on designing full-time! I've "finished" a few things over the years but not as many as I would have liked to. And even though publishing isn't the real reason I design, I still really want to. New sub :)
Thanks for sharing this! Really insightful and inspiring.
Looking good! And some great advice.
Thank you so much!
Nice to see more videos from you Matthew, happy new year!
Thanks Alex, happy new year to you too!
Great video - looking forward to hearing more! Some excellent advice to be starting off with, and you could probably get a whole series of videos drilling down further into each of those points!
Thank you Rob!
Great tips and advice! Thanks! Only two notes:
1: Would it be possible to have a slide or text come up summarising each point in future videos? Having the text on the screen can help more visual people like me :-)
2: I feel personally called out my top three hahaha I’m trying to finish stuff, I promise! 😂
Thank you for the feedback - yes definitely I need to think about summarising the info in a better way for different folks.
Love that you're aussie and also have credits under your belt. such a great resource. Would love to watch you document a complete 0-1 as a series, showing where and how you start and how you approach building from there.
Really good idea! Will put it in the ideas list :)
As a complete newcomer to game design with a single idea and very little direction to go with, this video has given me the motivation to at least table some cards and pretend I'm the player agents just to see it in motion.
Or at the very least, it's making me want to do this with a game in the genre i'm expecting this game to be just to at least get some experience seeing the point of view of two players having a mock-game. At the minimum, it'll just get me to understand the ins & out of trick-taking a little better even if nothing else comes out of it.
I'm so glad you found the video useful - good luck with your design :) I love trick taking games too.
@MatthewDunstan if it stays one from what I gathered watching, but i figured something of that scale is a better plan to get started