“Everyone says ‘keep on and never give up’, while I’m saying something more ‘unpopular’: game design is not only a passion. It’s a job. And as a job it requires skills, experience and preferably some talent.”

— Paolo Mori

“While a great mechanic can stand and live without a good theme, the opposite is not true.”

— Paolo Mori

Paolo Mori on problem solving, the scarcest resource for designers, being jealous with your ideas, giving up without regrets and more:

http://opinionatedgamers.com/2014/04/18/the-art-of-design-interviews-to-game-designers-25-paolo-mori/

Chevee Dodd (@cheveedodd) joins All Us Geeks (@AllUsGeeks) to discuss working with the community of gamers and designers leading up to a Kickstarter launch:

http://www.allusgeeks.com/2014/04/the-game-of-crowd-funding-chevee-dodd-interview-04-02-2014/

The Game Design Round Table discusses the contract between designers and players, infinite replayability, single-play games and more:

http://thegamedesignroundtable.com/2014/04/15/episode-75-infinite-loop/

Purple Pawn’s 2013 Game Industry Survey

http://www.purplepawn.com/2014/04/2013-global-game-industry-survey/

“Before you get too far into your game design, it’s worth asking yourself who is the target audience.”

— Daniel Solis (@DanielSolis)

Indie Game Contest at Ottawa Indie Game Convention→

tgcnews:

The Game Crafter is sponsoring an Indie Game Contest at the 2015 Ottawa Indie Game Convention. We know this is event is still pretty far off, but the deadline for rule set submission is November 1st and it will be here before you know it! Start working on those game designs. :)

The…

How to get Google to rank your website higher than your Kickstarter project page:

http://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-89-how-to-get-google-to-rank-your-website-higher-than-your-kickstarter-project-page/

MicroMan Print and Play Micro Game Design Challenge

Deadline: June 3, 2014

Prizes: GeekGold, possible participation in a group Kickstarter for publication

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1153853/microgame-print-and-play-contest

Boston Festival of Indie Games 2014 Tabletop Game Design Showcase

Dates: Submit by June 6, 2014. Showcase on Sept. 13, 2014

Prizes: Pitch session with Gamewright Games, $1,000 from AdMagic, $150 in components from The Game Crafter, and more

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1157058/boston-festival-of-indie-games-2014-submissions-ar

http://bostonfig.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/TTSubmissionGuidelinesBostonFIG2014.pdf

“Game prototyping tip: leave lots of white space on the cards so you can make edits as you go.”

— Todd Edwards (@Wininoid)

Geekway to the West 2014 Game Design Prototype “Speed Gaming” Competition

Date: May 16, 2014

Theme: Microgames

Prizes: Pitch session with AEG and more

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1156739/2014-game-design-prototype-speed-gaming-competitio

Minor lessons learned from the Tuscany Kickstarter:

http://stonemaiergames.com/5-minor-mistakes-we-made-on-tuscany-that-you-can-avoid-and-3-insights/

SEE ALSO: http://stonemaiergames.com/3-kickstarter-mistakes-we-made-on-tuscanythat-you-can-avoid/

A deeper understanding of game currencies, and how they can create interesting decisions for players:

http://kevingnunn.com/2014/04/15/game-currencies/

“Designing and publishing go really well together and also really go terribly together. When you can publish your own design, or assist in designing things you are publishing, it’s great. But publishing yanks all of the design time away as you are fulfilling many roles.”

— Jason Tagmire (@jtagmire)

The Impressions Vidcast offers shipping tips

The process of devising mechanics–a Board Game Design Forum discussion:

http://www.bgdf.com/forum/game-creation/mechanics/how-do-you-create-game-mechanics

A discussion of finance, information and dealmaking in economic games, with Michael Keller (@vhgames) and Aaron Honsowetz (@drwictz):

http://www.gamedesignerwannabe.com/2014/04/audio-aaron-honsowetz-interview.html

“When you think your rules are done, take another pass. When you think you have the best set of cards, identify your 3 weakest ones and try to replace them. If your mind conjures an alternate mechanic, branch and test.”

— Grant Rodiek (@HerrohGrant)