How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves | Game Maker's Toolkit

A designer’s job often involves making sure players are experiencing the game in the most fun or interesting way. In this video, I look at examples of games that have tried to achieve this - sometimes with success, and sometimes with controversy.

Note: Those World of Warcraft numbers are completely made up, for illustrative purposes.

Follow me on Twitter -
Support Game Maker's Toolkit on Patreon -

Sources

Sid Meier: The Psychology of Game Design | GDC Vault


Firaxis’ Jake Solomon On What Went Right And Wrong With XCOM 2| Rock Paper Shotgun


Water Finds a Crack | Designer Notes


Spelunky by Derek Yu | Boss Fight Books


Disable Timers | XCOM 2 Steam Workshop


Rest | WOWWiki


Designer Notes 15: Nels Anderson | Idle Thumbs


Further Reading / Viewing

Bloodborne Is Genius, And Here’s Why | hbomberguy


Nioh - Commanding Attention | Turbo Button


New Doom's deceptively simple design | Gamasutra


How Hyper Light Drifter’s Ammo Recharges Its Combat | Rock Paper Shotgun


Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance)

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games, 2012)
Final Fantasy XV (Square Enix, 2016)
Dead Rising 2 (Capcom Vancouver, 2010)
Civilization IV (Firaxis Games, 2005)
Nioh (Team Ninja, 2017)
XCOM 2 (Firaxis, 2016)
Spelunky (Derek Yu, 2012)
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004)
Sunset Overdrive (Insomniac Games, 2014)
New Super Mario Bros. U (Nintendo, 2012)
Sonic Mania (Sega, 2017)
Vanquish (PlatinumGames, 2010)
DOOM (id Software, 2016)
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (Infinity Ward, 2016)
Bloodborne (From Software, 2015)
Burnout Revenge (Criterion Games, 2005)
Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine, 2016)
Sonic Generations (Sonic Team, 2011)
Bayonetta 2 (PlatinumGames, 2014)
Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening (Capcom, 2005)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (Neversoft, 2001)
Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Ubisoft Toronto, 2013)
Wolfenstein: The New Order (MachineGames, 2014)
Project Gotham Racing 4 (Bizarre Creations, 2007)
Bulletstorm (People Can Fly, 2011)
Sleeping Dogs (United Front Games, 2012)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Naughty Dog, 2009)
The Last of Us (Naughty Dog, 2013)
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (Naughty Dog, 2017)
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Naughty Dog, 2011)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios, 2009)
Hitman (iO Interactive, 2016)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions, 2015)
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment, 2012)
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Ninja Theory, 2017)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo, 2017)
Dead Rising (Capcom, 2006)

Music used in this episode


Arcee on Soundcloud

Additional credits

Hellblade Development Diary 11: First Playable | Ninja Theory


World of Warcraft | YouTube