Gamification

I Made an Evergreen List of The BEST Game Dev Courses for Beginners

Video version of this article!.

Many people have been getting into game development lately, as well as joining communities like this one. I post this with the scope of trying to clarify for beginners, where they should look to find the best courses, and which of them should they give special attention to.

Udemy (Mostly Paid, All of them at 10$):

Learn to Code By Making Games - Complete C# Unity Developer:

(most of us already know this one) It's a best-seller of very high quality, bringing you from 0 knowledge to making your first games. After you finish this course, you will know even scripting, to such a level, that you could even start making games on your own.

The Unreal Engine Developer Course - Learn C++ & Make Games:

(this one is very well known too. It's pretty much the same course, but for Unreal and C++ and you mostly get the same benefits you get from the unity course) Choose which engine YOU personally like most and get started with one of these 2 courses. They offer almost pretty much everything.

Learn 3D Modelling - The Complete Blender Creator Course:

This one is also very known. Until now, all of these courses are made by the same author, Ben Tristem. Starting to see the pattern here? He makes good stuff. I finished 30% of this course, and I was already capable of making low poly games. I, who am one of the worst artists you will ever hear of. So you can definitely do it too.

I used to think it had to do with your drawing skills before starting, but you can totally suck at it, and still make great 3d models.

Pixel art for Video games:

This is for the people who want to make pixel art and retro games instead of 3d. I didn't get too far in it, because I didn't enjoy making pixel art, but I still learned a lot, even as the "Worst Artist"TM that I am.

Game Music Composition: Make Music For Games From Scratch:

I didn't actually take this course myself, because I did 8 years of music education, so I just got the software, and had a easier time figuring everything out.

But you don't need that AT ALL, because this course doesn't just tell you how to make game music. It also teaches you the basics of Music Theory, which will come very much in handy in your quest of becoming a game composer.

Coursera (You can take them all for FREE, and it mostly covers other aspects like game design and story writing):

Introduction to Game Design:

Pretty much self explanatory, this gets you all you need to start with game design.

Introduction to Game Development:

If you are REALLY new and you just want to test the waters for free, and see whether game development is right for you, I recommend you start with this one, out of everything I mentioned in this list.

Principles of Game Design:

This is the more advanced version of game design. If you have a game idea that you want to bring to execution, you should consider this one.

Business of Games and Entrepreneurship:

I can't even express how many valuable notes I wrote on a notebook, about this industry. If you're considering a career in game development, you might want to try this, to better understand how the place where you might work in the future functions.

Story and Narrative Development for Video Games:

All you need to start making your story, characters, to give your game more meaning.

Game Development for Modern Platforms:

It's usually obvious where you should be posting your game, but if it's not and you need more info on it, I absolutely recommend this.

Gamification:

Learn about mechanics of gamification, how to use certain game elements, and game design techniques.

BONUS: You might also want to check out Udacity, but it's more optional than the ones above. The best you can get out of it is in the marketing and promotion courses.

Edit: Moved the video version up for people who need it.

He also teaches a course on Coursera that's free, that goes over a lot of the same elements:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/gamification

there is a course i took on coursera, it's really good

check it out

gamification

Following are from my experience and will kick start your journey in gamification.

Gamification course by Kevin Werbach available on coursera is amazing. The course videos are free to watch. If you want to do graded assignments and certificate, you'll have to pay. There is option for financial aid also (if you 're really needy, you can apply to get exams and certificate for free).

Octalysis by Yu-Kai Chou. It's a tool to analyze how much gamified an application/process is. The tutorials are free on his website.

I hope it helps...

Although YouTube has several tutorials on gamification, Karl Kapp is one of the leading voices for gamification in a classroom setting. As mentioned in the previous two comments most of gamification was bastardized by using the PBL (points, badges, leaderboards). These are easily implemented because they are the arithmetic or metrics of gamification. To get into the psychology and motivation and tap intrinsic motivation, I'd suggest a run through the Udemy online courses. Gabe Zichermann and Yu-kai Chou are both worth the deep dive. I'd start by learning the basics of Gamification design with either Kevin Werbach's course on Coursera or with Gabe's courses and when you want to go really deep into gamification then take Yu-kai's course on Octalysis.

I stumbled upon this thread and had to think about Gameful. The only touchpoint with gamification I had so far, was Kevin Werbach's course on Coursera.

Definitely check out Dav site! He has lots of quality content.

What is the name of your Youtube channel? Would be interesting to have a look at it :). I am currently doing 2 courses on Coursera, which go through gamification and serious gaming concepts. Both really recommended. https://www.coursera.org/learn/serious-gaming https://www.coursera.org/learn/gamification?=

In Youtube there is this channel called Gamify, which focusses on gamification elements. Sometimes rather simpe, but good to start with https://www.youtube.com/c/GamifyChannel/videos

Good luck!

Thanks!

For habits - check out BJ Fogg's book, Tiny Habits. You can also check out some older stuff, like the work of Dr. Gabrielle Oettingen (WHOOP Protocol, mental contrasting, and the book Rethinking Positive Thinking), and Dr. Peter Gollwitzer (mental contrasting).

Even better, if you can get a hold of it, read the full research paper Modelling Habit Formation in the Real World by Philippa Lally, et al. - in my opinion it's the most important paper on productivity ever written. It answers the question "how long does a habit take to form?" by using the now standard sliding scale metric for habit formation, as described in the paper Reflections on Past Behavior: A Self-Report Habit Index of Habit Strength by Verplanken and Orbell. It also has some interesting other bits, like whether or not streaks are strictly required to strengthen habits (they're not).

For gamification, Kevin Werbach wrote the book on it - For the Win. He also has an excellent course on it on Coursera.

If you want to check out an even more robust list of behavioral "bits", you can check out my Elements of Change: A Grand Unified Theory of Self-Help.