Ludology 283 - Tools of the Trade

Erica, Gil, and Sen discuss some of the tools and processes they use at the various phases of designing a game from their varying perspectives of an in-house designer, a publisher, and freelance designer/developer.  SHOW NOTES:

00:08:31 DDS is an acronym for Detailed Design Specification

00:11:38 LucidChart browser-based flowcharting and more www.lucidchart.com

00:18:43 Canva free online graphic design tool www.canva.com

00:19:13 Tabletop Simulator is a virtual tabletop (VTT) run on Steam www.tabletopsimulator.com 

00:19:14 Tabletopia is a browser-based VTT www.tabletopia.com

00:21:26 Also known as an MVP - a “Minimum Viable Prototype”

00:21:45 Filemaker Pro is a relational database www.claris.com 

00:21:57 Nandeck is cardmaking software www.nandeck.com 

00:22:05 Component Studio is a full game design suite that is hooked up to the Game Crafter https://component.studio/

00:26:06 Adobe Creative Suite is the industry standard for the industry in terms of graphic design www.adobe.com 

00:27:54 Photopea is an online Photoshop equivalent for raster images www.photopea.com

00:28:29 GIMP is an open source Photoshop equivalent www.gimp.org

00:29:15 Inkscape is a free equivalent of Illustrator for vector images www.inkscape.org

00:29:57 The Affinity Suite is a one-time payment suite of graphic design and illustrative tools https://affinity.serif.com

00:36:46 Fiskars Rotary Cutter is Sen’s weapon of choice www.fiskars.com/en-us/crafting-and-sewing/products/rotary-cutters-mats-and-rulers 

00:37:13 Arc punches, square punches and corner punches, oh my! This is an example of a 1” arch punch: www.amazon.ca/General-Tools-Instruments-1271M-1-Inch/dp/B00004T7WH

00:41:36 Midjourney and Dall-e are prompt-based AI Art generators www.midjourney.com / https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/

00:44:58 Some great sources for icons etc. www.flaticon.com https://thenounproject.com https://game-icons.net

00:45:32 Face generating software ThisPersonDoesNotExist https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

00:48:46 Functional Fixedness is the psychological phenomena when a person cannot see any other use for an item because their initial understanding of how it’s used is the only way they think it can be used

00:49:10 Sunk Cost Fallacy occurs when a person will not make a change, even one that is likely to be highly beneficial, due to the perceived amount of time, money, effort, etc.they have already invested in the current strategy

00:55:58 You can record your screen right from Windows https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/record-the-screen-d70508e8-25a3-4b97-b78a-a467b5372e21 and MacOS https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT208721