How Do I Get Into Game Design?

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Many of us who love playing video games want to learn how to make our own, too. Although I haven’t ever fully followed through with it, I’m no exception! I’ve always been bookmarking away helpful resources so that one day should I ever really feel motivated enough to go through with it, I too could work on making my own game.

So now I’ve decided to share these resources with you! If you have any other resources that you feel would help others get into making games, please let me know in the comments!

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Surprise! League of Legends is Actually Fun

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For a long time I looked down on League of Legends. I suppose it started in college when my roommate’s then-boyfriend would talk about it and play it all the time. I really didn’t like him and a lot of the other stuff he played, so I transferred that sentiment to League of Legends as well. As the game gained more buzz online and began filling stadiums for tournaments, I continued to brush it off because of the infamously toxic community. Why would I ever want to even try to engage with a community that treated each other so cruelly? Why would I want to participate in a game full of those people? Especially after my previous experiences with Dota 2’s players, I never thought I’d get so far as downloading League of Legends.

I’ve now been playing League of Legends for about three weeks now. It’s incredibly fun and I’m absolutely hooked.

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Silence: Why Hearthstone Makes Me Less Anxious

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When I join in to a player versus player game – Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, even Guild Wars 2’s PvP – my biggest worry isn’t really how well I do, it’s how the other people in the match will react to me. This isn’t an article about how women who identify themselves as women (whether through voice-chat or feminine-coded gamertags) generally deal with more harassment in multiplayer games. That’s an entirely different, though important, discussion. Even when my gender isn’t revealed, there’s still a cloud of toxicity that permeates any multiplayer game – except for one, in my experience.

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5 Podcasts to Listen to While Gaming

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I have a confession. Despite having been on a number of game-related podcasts, I don’t listen to game podcasts much (unless I’m traveling and don’t have as much time to keep up-to-date on gaming news). Instead I usually listen to comedy or other geeky-interest podcasts. Since a majority of my gaming time is spent in MMOs, there’s a lot of time that goes by doing repetitive things or gameplay that just doesn’t require quite as much of my attention so I often listen to podcasts while working my way through the landscape or leveling alts. Here are five podcasts that I frequently turn to to help me pass the time in those less-than-exciting hours of gameplay.

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Sym – Platform Anxiety

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Since I was a teenager, I’ve been suffering from anxiety. Sometimes it’s perfectly manageable and other times it is debilitating. My life has been peppered with incidents caused by my anxiety – dropping out of a drawing course my Freshman year because I was getting so stressed out from it; breaking down crying in the airport the first time I had to fly by myself; being too anxious to eat in the dinning hall of my dorm while studying abroad; not being able to sleep through the night because I was so freaked out despite nothing being wrong with my life – the list goes on but I’ll spare you the details. So when I first read about Sym from Atrax Games – a game that aimed to illustrate what it’s like to have an anxiety disorder – my interest was definitely piqued.

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Earthtongue – Diversity at Play

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At first, it might seem like there’s not much going on in Earthtongue. You’ve got some mushrooms and bugs growing. But then as time ticks on and new fungi and bugs come to inhabit your little planet, you begin to realize just how much diversity there is in this little vivarium simulator. Balancing out all the herbivores and predators and fast growing fungi and carnivorous fungi can be tricky but getting to watch the neon spores and growths spread across your planet is surprisingly fun and addicting.

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Crypt of the Necrodancer – Fighting to the Beat

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My first experience with Crypt of the Necrodancer was in a dark back room at the first Bit Bash Chicago event in September 2014. In a tiny, cramped room filled with Killer Queen arcade machines, on one wall Crypt of the Necrodancer was being projected. In front, two Dance Dance Revolution dance pads were sprawled out and hooked up to the game. It had one of the more reasonable lines compared to all the other games set up, so my friend and I decided to wait. He got a go first and I watched carefully in an attempt to figure out how to play before I got up there and embarrassed myself. Finally when it was my turn up, we managed to get through level 1 of Zone 1 and got to the first dragon mini boss before we both died. Along the way I haphazardly sliced at enemies and accidentally dug my way through walls, trying to move my feet to the beat.

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