Udemy

Game Design Essentials: Tools, Theories and Techniques

Enroll Now
  • 4,579 Students
  • Updated 7/2025
4.4
(506 Ratings)
CTgoodjobs selects quality courses to enhance professionals' competitiveness. By purchasing courses through links on our site, we may receive an affiliate commission.

Course Information

Registration period
Year-round Recruitment
Course Level
Study Mode
Duration
4 Hour(s) 20 Minute(s)
Language
English
Rating
4.4
(506 Ratings)

Course Overview

Game Design Essentials: Tools, Theories and Techniques

Harness the power of game design, psychology and systems thinking to understand your players and how games work.

This course offers a comprehensive framework to understand and practice game design.

At the end of this course, you will have the tools and thinking process to understand why some games are fun and keep players playing for a long time, while others fail.


WHAT YOU WILL LEARN...

  • Understand the role of the game designer and other roles in game development

  • How to keep improving as a game designer and what skills you need

  • What are game parts, mechanics and dynamics and understand the language of games

  • Harness the power of Design Thinking to better Empathize, Ideate and Prototype your games.

  • Use Psychology to understand your players and how they perceive your game

  • What is a GDD

  • What is a game pitch

  • How to communicate your game idea to your team

  • How math and probability work in board and video games

  • Create game models using Google Spreadsheets to test your game early

  • Use random, procedural generation and systems thinking to create systemic gameplay to design games that are interesting to play and watch.

  • Analyze real and game systems to create meaningful games by relating players to their surroundings and experiences

HOW WILL YOU PRACTICE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED

  • You will create a card game from a humble beginning all the way to a unique and engaging game.

  • Each activity is designed to practice what you have just learned.

  • The card game will be uniquely modified by you, so you can keep working on it even after the course ends.

What is NOT included in this course...

  • Programming languages

  • Art asset creation

Course Content

  • 7 section(s)
  • 82 lecture(s)
  • Section 1 Section 1: Setting Up for Success
  • Section 2 Game Design Basics
  • Section 3 The Game Design Thinking Process
  • Section 4 Communicating your Game
  • Section 5 Math & Probability
  • Section 6 Introduction to Game System Design
  • Section 7 Farewell

What You’ll Learn

  • Learn to design games understanding all their constitutive parts and how they connect with each other, Learn to play games like a game designer (Analytical play), Understand Systems Thinking to understand our world and existing games to transfer those experiences into your own games, Use the Design Thinking method to improve your design process, Use psychology to understand your players and create more directed experiences, Create spreadsheet simulations to balance your games, Use GDD and pitching to communicate with your team and different stakeholders

Reviews

  • P
    Petar Ivančević
    4.5

    Still taking it and half way there. It is very entertaining and provides a lot of valuable information that is well structured. It would perhaps be interesting to see the course instructor building the game and providing guidance on his approach and his final outcome.

  • Á
    Álmos Szirmai-Szili
    3.5

    I liked everything that Gabriel taught, it was useful, however his presentation could have been better. It was quite obvious he was reading his lines.

  • H
    Haytham
    1.0

    the intructor said he has many years of experince on Game Design, Im as indie developer with very small experince i can tell he know nothing, and he dont know how to give infroamtion, its litrarly waste of money for only titles names he gave

  • N
    NoName Jack
    5.0

    Wonderful welcoming video... each chapter was just what I wanted to hear to become a master at creating video games in the future !! Thank you, UDEMY !! Thank you, Gabriel !!

Start FollowingSee all

We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website. Please read and confirm your agreement to our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions before continue to browse our website.

Read and Agreed