Wanna think more deeply about game design? Here's some reports on the latest systems analyses from Polaris Design Retreat, from social psychological-safety design to mechanical comedy to loss, and beyond! polarisgamedesign.com/reports/

I decided to map all my top "I should actually make this" side projects to figure out what they have in common and surprising no one the answer is "horror" and "narrative focused"

Lucas Pope's @dukope.bsky.social top 10 influential games (unranked): Wizards & Warriors Dark Castle Out of this World / Another World Thief Digital: A Love Story Doom II: Hell on Earth Quake Shadowgate Flashback Goonies II The list of top influential games: polarisgamedesign.com/the-polaris-...

ICYMI, in December 2025, Polaris said Portal is the top influence on working senior game designers. A new article from @aftermath.site by @beewertheimer.com suggests Portal is often embedded canon at the training level for new designers 🤔 I wonder what a femme-designers-only list would look like!

If you're a Polaris alum, check the Discord! We've announced this year's dates, venue, and also are asking for folks to nominate new attendees.

February's gazette is out! 📰 @strangescaffold.bsky.social's Space Warlord Baby Trading Sim has launched, @polarisgamedesign.com papers are published, @play.date Community Awards nomination for Chance's Lucky Escape & Double Dragon Big box! www.thecrimsondiamond.com/CrimsonGazette89.html

If you prefer your game design thoughts podcasts via Spotify, we're also there! Listen and learn at your leisure: open.spotify.com/show/5ewr7SE...

The incredible @rainysector.bsky.social hosted a Polaris Design podcast with some attendees of Polaris 2025 -- have a listen to what some groups were thinking midway through the conference, and how they personally approach their paper topics: www.youtube.com/@PolarisDesi...

I really liked this papers breakdown of virtual social interactions and the different needs and risks that should be considered. Great for game designers of course, and super interesting to think about as a community professional and digital anthropologist. polarisgamedesign.com/2025/toolkit...

A new cohort of my Designing Cities for Video Games game urbanism class will be starting this March. Will be also doing a live course presentation on February 25: www.eventbrite.com/e/designing-...

"Rewriting the Player Contract" suggests 4 framings for managing high trust with your players: 1 - Tiered commitments (core pillars vs possibility spaces) 2 - Trust Reserves (over-deliver small promises) 3 - Provisional language 4 - Protect mysteries Read more: polarisgamedesign.com/2025/rewriti...

So very happy to see the physical edition of Ex Novo 2nd ed. doing so well on Indie Press Revolution... www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Ex-Nov...

It's time to SHORT THAT BABY! 📈 Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator is OUT NOW on Steam! PLUS even more campaigns and content coming out over the next weeks and months! 💚👽 store.steampowered.com/app/3642000/...

"dry bones comes from the Bible" oh okay yes I am reading every fucking word of this, let's go

done with "everything is gender". now is the time of "everything is game design"

In need of a bit of design inspiration today? How about playing some Game Poems? www.gamepoems.com Including work by @pippinbarr.bsky.social @gregoryaveryweir.bsky.social, curation by @agatawaszkiewicz.bsky.social @jordanmagnuson.bsky.social and more!

It's the Polaris 2025 reports! They've come! They're here! It's a bumper crop of five, count'em FIVE papers! We got comedy, we got death, we got cringe, we got trust... something for the whole team. Piping hot game design knowledge and insight await: polarisgamedesign.com/reports/

This year's Polaris game design papers are up and our group worked on Mechanical Comedy in Games, as in games where the comedy comes from players performing the jokes. Really pleased with what we learned (and glad I thought to pitch the topic). polarisgamedesign.com/2025/mechani...

I contributed to "Rewriting the Player Contract" 👀 Check all the papers out if you've the time. They're very very cool.

I worked with the irrepressible @jonremedios.bsky.social @tylermakesgames.bsky.social @rainysector.bsky.social @bravemule.bsky.social to write a paper on why permadeath (and other forms of loss in games) appeals, and what we lose when we try to paper over it with metaprogression. Check it out!

Hooray! 🎉 This year's ✨@polarisgamedesign.com✨ papers are live! I'm super pumped because I got attend the retreat last year and help write one. 😊 It's about trust and wonder. Check it out here: polarisgamedesign.com/2025/rewriti...

It's the Polaris 2025 reports! They've come! They're here! It's a bumper crop of five, count'em FIVE papers! We got comedy, we got death, we got cringe, we got trust... something for the whole team. Piping hot game design knowledge and insight await: polarisgamedesign.com/reports/

The new reports from @polarisgamedesign.com went up today! I had the pleasure of attending this year and got to work with some pretty nifty people on a pretty nifty paper about loss and pain in video games. Fun stuff! polarisgamedesign.com/2025/embraci...

The @polarisgamedesign.com 2025 papers are up now! I had such a blast being a part of the working group on Mechanical Comedy in Games, which is our framework for talking about how players perform jokes as part of the available player verbs, mechanics, and systems

One year ago today, I released the ashcan of REALIS, my first TTRPG. Today, we've got a near-complete draft that's 50,000 words longer than the preview that so many of you checked out, with over 100 new pieces of art. Thanks to everyone who checked it out. And get ready for the KS later this year.

Game designer @natloh.bsky.social Nat Loh's top 10 influential games (unranked): GTA 3 Megaman 2 The Legend of Zelda: BOTW The Legend of Zelda Star Control 2 Wolfenstein 3D Metal Gear Solid Lode Runner Civilization Shadow of the Colossus Runner-up: "Naruto [...] on Skylander ability ideation."

Happy Weekend! My tiny Over the Garden Wall adventure game has hit 10k plays on itch.io🎉! It's FREE to play https://juliaminamata.itch.io/otgw -- A nice way to spend a cozy half hour or so indoors. ❄️ There's also a walkthrough, no worries about getting stuck!

Creative Director & Designer Michael Austin's 10 most influential games (unranked): Adventure Super Mario Brothers Legend of Zelda Oblivion Counter-Strike Assassin's Creed Stardew Valley Slay the Spire Civilization Satisfactory

The influence of Ultima Online (by Raph Koster) www.raphkoster.com/2017/09/28/u...

Ken Rolston's top 10 influential games (unranked): Little Inferno Civilization Baldur's Gate Myth II: Soulblighter Dragon's Dogma Daggerfall The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy Card Hunter Call of Duty Honorable Mention: Tunnels and Trolls tabletop rpg

Top 10 influential games according to designer Jolie Menzel @joliemenzel.bsky.social (unranked): Kirby 64 Pokemon Crystal Sonic Adventure 2 Super Smash Brothers: Melee Super Mario Sunshine Katamari Damacy Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Portal Skyrim Minecraft

Because I love to talk about the games that made me as a designer: here's a blog post about my response to @polarisgamedesign.com's survey of influential games. azhdarchid.com/a-design-gen...

Top 10 influential games as submitted by Brenda Romero @brendaromero.bsky.social : Dungeons & Dragons (1977) Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord M.U.L.E. Civilization DOOM (1993) Half-Life 2 Minecraft The Beginner's Guide That Dragon Cancer What Remains of Edith Finch

Polaris Report summary: A Toolkit for Encouraging Player Stories how can we make it more likely that players will share their stories with each other? here's some tips on how to seed higher "tellability" in your design! or read the paper: polarisgamedesign.com/2022/a-toolk...

a new batch of Polaris reports is coming soon! have you browsed all the reports from past years lately? new game design insights might catch your eye: polarisgamedesign.com/reports/

Daniel Stansens submitted this top 10 influential games list: Everquest Planescape: Torment Diablo 2 Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2(!) Battlefield 1942 Rogue King's Quest Mass Effect 1 Star Wars: Galaxies(!) Final Fantasy 4(!) Non-videogame honorary mention: The artist Plastiboo

We asked 167 pro game designers what games influenced their work, and aggregated the results into a top-100! I'll thread the list here, but if you wanna cheat, head on over: polarisgamedesign.com/the-polaris-... Podcast with more nuance: www.gamedeveloper.com/design/are-t...

Apropos of Zork and Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy making it into the @polarisgamedesign.com list of influential games, here's the parser interactive fiction I think everyone should play: Aisle Spider & Web A Mind Forever Voyaging Anchorhead Slouching Towards Bedlam Savoir-Faire Eat Me

Ian Schreiber's @ianschreiber.bsky.social top 10 influential game list (unranked): Final Fantasy VI To The Moon(!) Narbacular Drop(!) Marble Madness (arcade)(!) Killer Queen (arcade)(!) Undertale Pulsar (arcade)(!) Star Control II Archon(!) Yars' Revenge(!)

Occasionally in the coming year(s), we'll post the top 10 influential games list from designers that gave us permission to do so, and/or their remarks on the influence. We'll try to remember to mark (!) on the ones that didn't show up in the top 100, but we'll probably forget sometimes too.

did Portal actually /directly/ influence games & their design more than, say, DOOM? not necessarily. but it's interesting that a disproportionate number of designers have it lurking in their landscape, stewing, simmering, whether or not they work in shooters or in narrative design.

if it sounds like most professional designers we surveyed were North Americans over 30 who mostly worked in console or PC games that is in fact the bias (the Polaris organizer network). Maybe in a few years we'll redo it more widely... could we get 300 designers.. 500?

We asked 167 pro game designers what games influenced their work, and aggregated the results into a top-100! I'll thread the list here, but if you wanna cheat, head on over: polarisgamedesign.com/the-polaris-... Podcast with more nuance: www.gamedeveloper.com/design/are-t...

designeritis - the condition in which, after learning or practicing the craft of game design, your intrinsic joy of playing games "for fun" is damaged, lower, or difficult to sustain. sound familiar?

Game Design is Simple, Actually: "fun is basically about making progress on prediction" and the nature of good problems www.raphkoster.com/2025/11/03/g... by the enlightening @raphkoster.bsky.social

my bio on the other place was once "creating elaborate excuses for inherently enjoyable activities", so, like, I am definitely sympathetic to the idea that a thing games can do is provide a way to do a thing a player wanted to do before they saw the game

Player fantasies are one form of player contract. If only someone was writing a giant-ass paper on player contracts... @polarisgamedesign.com

we are preparing a report aggregated from a survey of 165+ pro designers! each was asked "what 10 video games most influenced/inspired you personally?" which individual title do you think will be at the top and why?

some reading that we are told influences pro designers: The Atrocity Exhibition - J. G. Ballard (x2) The Simple Art of Murder “Nudge” (2008) Culture series - Iain M Banks Force of Art - Krzysztof Ziarek Artificial Hells - Claire Bishop Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Here - Richard McGuire

Hello, Bluesky! If you love thinking, talking, and/or writing about game design, check out our starter pack! go.bsky.app/AsBK784 We're an organization committed to tackling the toughest problems in games and sharing what we learn with the world!