The following are a collection of the best blog posts from the Design Oriented Blog.

A Sense of Design

The below 3 articles and accompanying video get at the heart of art and design; the very reason why we bother to express ourselves through mediums in the first place. Though Design Oriented is a community for serious game design, these articles grasp at the more relatable, human element of design. So rather than start with a controller in hand or a technical book, I enjoy sharing this unique introduction.

• Blindness
• Deafness
• Wordless
• Foundations of Game Design (video)

Pac-Man Design

• Pac-Man Design: Arcade. Doodle. Map. Mechanics
• Pac-Man Design: What’s Interesting About Pac-Man’s Gameplay?
• Pac-Man Design: Hallways and Turns Level Analysis
• Pac-Man Design: Deterministic and Random Ghosts
• Pac-Man Design: Variables of Difficulty

.

Pokemon. Pokemon. Pokemon

• Characterization Through Mechanics: Pokemon Battles
• Exeggutor Space

.

VLAMBEER and GAME FEEL

• Vlambeer Scale of Quality
• Vlambeer Scale: Weighing Fish
• Vlambeer Scale on Vlambeer Games
• Non-Vlambeer Games Scored
• Hold My Vlambeer
• A Vlambeer Round for Everyone

.

Richard Terrell (@KirbyKid) is the founder of Design Oriented, creator of the Critical-Gaming blog, project lead of the Starseed Observatory, one of three designers of BaraBariBall of Sportsfriends, and creator of OneSmash.