Brent Knowles

Books 1 and Book 2 of the Lazy Designer are now available!

For over ten years, Brent Knowles worked as a designer with the RPG game developer, BioWare. Along the way he wrote dialog, scripted levels, wrote design docs and ended up being a Lead Designer on Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age. He also learned a few things.

The ‘Lazy Designer’ is a collection of his posts related specifically to gaming or game development. These posts are snippets of what will become larger, more detailed chapters — Brent is keeping these posts relatively short to facilitate consumption on the web.

New posts are still being added: subscribe to Brent’s newsletter or follow this blog’s feed to keep up to date.

NOTE: If you want a high level overview of being a game designer you should probably check out this video over at the Escapist.

Book 1 – Getting Started

Getting into the Gaming Industry
Teaching Yourself
Getting Hired in the Game’s Industry — Technical Skills
Meeting Etiquette
E-mail Etiquette the CC vs BCC
Sorry I can’t read your story
Task Management
Loving the Crunch
When People Ignore Email
The Product
Game Development Positions Part 1 – Design
Being Organized
Providing Useful Feedback
Receiving Feedback

Book 2 – The Second Game

Data Generation
Building a Shed
Changing Designer Data
Designing Frustration
Designing Frustration Part 2
Designing Frustration Part 3
Accountability

Book 3 -In Between Projects

Keep Yourself Busy
Cross-Platform Experimenting
Documentation

Book 4 – Specialists

Give them tools
Creating Emotion in Games – Guilt as Gameplay Mechanic
Pee Happens
Hidden Features versus Growing Features
Videogame Level Design
Writing Videogames
Writing Videogames — Getting the Job
Making Monsters
Do Gamers Want Dungeons?

Book 5 – The Manager

Design Expectations
Secret Keeping
The Design Manager
You are Not Smarter Than Them
Videogame Franchises… the slow death?
Pay Pal – Use it please
Harnessing Change and Responding to Change
Save Games
Hard Decisions
Building a Team – Passion

Extra Info

More on Guilt

Main, Unsorted List

• Sonic Chronicles
• BioWare-Brent Year 1 (1999)
• Building a Shed
• BioWare-Brent Year 2 (2000 - 2001)
• BioWare-Brent Year 3 (2001 - 2002)
• The Lazy Designer: Providing Useful Feedback
• BioWare-Brent Year 4 (2002 - 2003)
• Fallout 3 Game Review
• Leaving BioWare... three months later
• iPhone Game Development
• BioWare-Brent Year 5 (Fall 2003 - Summer 2004)
• BioWare-Brent Year 6 (Fall 2004 - Summer 2005)
• On Being Organized
• PayPal - use it please
• Getting into the Gaming Industry
• Videogame Franchises... the slow death?
• E-mail Etiquette the CC vs BCC
• Meeting Etiquette
• Creating Emotion in Games - Guilt as Gameplay Mechanic
• Getting Hired in the Game's Industry -- Technical Skills
• Distraction Devices
• Be Careful What You Wish For
• Data and Resource Generation
• Features - Hidden versus Growing
• Pee Happens
• Guilt based motivation
• Giving them tools
• You are Not Smarter Than Them
• Harnessing Change
• Responding to Change - pitfalls
• Making a product
• Pirating Product
• BioWare-Brent Year 7 (Fall 2005 – Summer 2006)
• Design Debate - Paging versus Scrolling
• Keep Yourself Busy
• Getting Feedback
• The Design Manager
• Cross-Platform Experimenting
• Savegame Tips
• Videogame Area Design
• Sorry I can't read your story
• BioWare-Brent Year 8 (Fall 2006 - Summer 2007)
• Tips: Teaching yourself Game Development
• Task Management 101
• Videogame Design Documentation
• BioWare-Brent Year 9 (Fall 2007 - Summer 2008)
• Secret Keeping
• BioWare-Brent Year 10 (Fall 2008 - Summer 2009)
• Hard Decisions
• Empire Avenue - Press Release
• A Sense of Wonder
• Lazy Designer - Changing Designer Data
• Loving the Crunch
• Writing Videogames
• So How Do I Get a Job Writing in the Videogame Industry?
• Auroras, Stories, and More
• Preparing for a career in the games industry
• Dragon Age 2 Demo
• Design Expectations
• Game Music
• How the story began
• Design Document Traps (Intentional)
• Designing Frustration (Part 1)
• Designing Frustration (Part 2)
• Integrated Videogame Advertising Question
• Designing Frustration (Part 3)
• Accountability in Game Development
• Making Monsters
• Building a Team? The First Ingredient
• Nobody can hear you scream
• The Product
• Game Development Jobs - Design
• Do Gamers want Dungeons?
• Rejection in the Games Industry
• Bad Designer! - Road Construction
• Cover Thoughts?
• "Cool" - The Most Dangerous Word in Game Development
• Lazy Designer
• Lazy Designer - Book 1
• Lazy Designer Content... Update
• Lazy Designer Update
• Free and Lazy
• Freebies
• My Years at BioWare
• Giving the Gift of Programming (or: How did you learn to code?)
• Rules of Play
• The Lazy Designer Book 2 - Update
• Gamifying Government, an Example of Designer Bias
• Lazy Designer 2: Feedback on Tools Section
• Lazy Designer Book 2 Rough Draft Complete
• Lazy Designer Book 2
• How to Script for Games
• Lazy Designer: Pricing
• Update and a Happy New Year
• Doors (Lazy Designer #3 Excerpt)
• Lazy Designer Book 3 Exploration and Gameplay Is...
• If you read Dutch... (game AI)
• Just Like Old Times...
• Table of Contents - Lazy Designer: How to Start a Career in Game Design
• Table of Contents: Lazy Designer Book 2 - Making the Next Game

All posts are copyrighted by Brent Knowles 2009-2010. Excerpts may be posted elsewhere without permission though attribution would be appreciated. Full posts should not be duplicated, without permission.