Think Like A Game Designer - Think Like a Game Designer Mastery Course

Episode Date: February 13, 2021

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. Today's episode is going to be a little different than usual, because instead of bringing on one of the many talented guests and designers that I know from the industry to help unpack what they know, I'm going to present a brand new way for you to learn game design and get your game published. And that's the Think Like a Game Designer mastery course. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you've probably heard me tease this program,

but now it's finally ready for prime time. You see, I began this. journey many years ago when I wrote the book for Think Like a Game Designer. My goal was to take the lessons that I've learned over the last 20 years and compress them in a way that can help you learn much faster than I did, because the process of design can be scary, and the understanding what it takes to be creative can be hard. And I found that through that process, I learned a ton myself, and that led to a lot of the conversations that then became the foundation of this podcast. And while this podcast has and will continue to give tons of free advice, tons of great

information, continue to distill the lessons and the best practices from all the greatest designers in the world that I can get on here. The truth of the matter is that no matter how much you read, no matter how much you listen, that's not going to make you a great designer. The only way to become a great game designer, the only way to bring your games to life, is to actually put those lessons into practice. And I spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to do that. And my conclusion was to create the mastery course. What happens in the mastery course is not only will you get lessons from me, which come in the form of short video lessons, as well as worksheets,

assignments, and very specific step-by-step tasks to move forward. But you'll also join an incredible community of designers in our exclusive Think Like a Game Designer Discord. There, you'll be able to ask questions of me, my team, as well as your fellow designers when you get stuck, you'll be able to find people to playtest with, people to support and cheer you on, and even more. In addition, for this launch of the course, we're actually going to be helping you to hold you accountable by having calendar scheduled play tests, by having an accountability sheet where you can point to the next things you're going to do each week, where we can break down this huge amorphous, challenging thing of how do I make a game, down to the very concrete

steps of here's the next way, here's the next thing you do, here's a tool you can use to prototype, here's how you evaluate feedback, here's how you get your game and find artists, here's how you work with graphic designers, here's how you work, and if you want to kickstart your game, or if you want to pitch your game to publishers, how do you make a sell sheet? We answer all of those questions and more in the master class. Now, those of you that are on the stoneblade.com email list or the things like a game designer email list may have heard about the beta course that we ran back in November. This was a limited class that sold out very quickly where I got a few people in to test the principles of the course. And honestly, I was blown away by the results.

The students in the class not only came up with amazing designs and got to playtest and advance things, but several of them have moved their project. project to pretty close to finalize stage. We have not only tabletop games, which is the bulk of the course, but also digital games. We had one student who raised over $150,000 to help bring their virtual reality game program to life. We had another student who had already completed a $200,000 Kickstarter, but use the principles in the course and the connections that I have to help find the right contacts, to help make sure that they're able to execute and publish and print their game in a way that's going to be very powerful. And we have many more that I'm working with personally to, help make sure that their games come to life, and even looking at some that we might publish ourselves as Stoneblade Entertainment. And so there is so much excitement and so much fun in this course. Like, not only do we have all the best lessons that I could put together, not only from my own experience, but from all of the things that I've learned from the people who I've brought onto this podcast, but also from the students themselves, I have learned a ton from them sharing ideas, bringing out new things, and refined the way that I'm able to teach and the way that I'm

able to understand these principles. And so the course is really the thing that if you are serious, if now, if 2021 is the year that you want to become a game designer, that you want to see your games come to life, then please join us in the Think Like a Game Designer mastery course. If you're interested and you want to learn more, go to think like a game designer.com or Justin Gary.com and click on the Think Like a Game Designer mastery course in the upper right hand corner. In addition, because you guys, the audience that listens to this podcast are clearly so invested in what's going on that you guys have helped to grow this community to tens of thousands of people and you've shown that level of investment, I'm going to give an

exclusive discount to listeners of this podcast. So if you type in JG Podcast, when you sign up, you'll actually get $500 off the price of the masterclass. And so this is something that I really want to help share and show that like those of you who have been with me from the beginning, over these last several years, those you who have been following along and sharing and growing this podcast mean a lot, and it's clear that you're dedicated to the craft. Now is when you take that next step. Now, it's one thing, like I said, to be listening to a free podcast or even being able to read a book or two. It's another thing to take that big step forward and really commit to getting things done. One of the principles I talk about is the importance of deadlines,

and that's what this course is going to do for you. It's going to help force the function of you making things happen because the course itself is 12 weeks long and through that time we're going to walk you through those steps. It doesn't matter whether you've never come up with a game idea before and you have no idea where to start or like some of our current students, you've got a game that's really far along and maybe you've already kick started or you've got a design you've been working on for years. The course is designed to meet you where you are and make sure that you continually take steps forward. And the way I look at it is, you know, it took me 20 years to learn all of these principles and trying to compress them in a way that I can give that to you and turn 20 years into

12 weeks is an incredibly challenging task. But now that I've seen the results in the beta course, I know that it works. And so if this is a real commitment for you and this is something you're willing to put in the work for, please come join us, right? Go to think like a game designer.com, go to think like a game designer mastery course link and enter the code JG podcast. Now, I don't want to stop there because this course is going to require hard work. If you're a not the kind of person that's willing to put in the work, to do iterations, to actually test your design, build prototypes, go into the group, get feedback, listen to what could be challenging sometimes constructive feedback from me directly, as well as from your fellow students and other

members of my Stoneblade team, then you shouldn't join this course because that's the hard work of the things. I make the process as simple as possible. I make the steps and the next steps what to do as easy as I can, but the truth of the matter is the hard work. work still has to come from you. And so that's the kind of person that I want to see in this course. And if you're not in that place in your life, you're not ready for it, that's cool. Take your time, listen to the podcast more, wait until you're ready. But if you are ready, and if you want to take this seriously as a way to get started in a career in game design, as a way to advance your career in game design, as a way to just understand games better at a deeper level and to be able to have

some direct one-on-one interactions with me, then please come join the course. We'd love to have you as part of this community. So, in addition, to the access to the course materials, the video lessons, we are going to have monthly masterminds where you can sign up and I will be there to teach lessons and react to questions that I see, and I'll be able to help you directly with the kinds of problems and challenges you have. When you get stuck and don't know what to do next, we'll have the whole group all in one place to be able to get you involved. And for those of you that can't get involved to a live mastermind, they're all recorded,

so you can review them. And you can take lessons from the tips that I give to other people, as well as review anything that I've said about your game. We had people from all over the world join this beta group, whether it's from Africa, Europe, Australia, North America, South America. We had people from all over and it was amazing because being able to join into this discord and have people participate at the pace that they want to participate in, at the times they want to participate in, really made it something that could unite everybody around the world. And so it's something I'm incredibly proud to have been able to create. I am so proud of what the team in the beta group has done,

and they have helped me refine the course and make it better. We've improved the course now by adding new lessons on things like how you can create a sell sheet and how you can pitch your game to other publishers if you want to sell to a publisher, especially in today's world with COVID-19 where you can't just go to a convention and pitch that way. We have tips and tools for that, and we're helping people to find those right matches to find the right publisher. And if you go to our website, you can actually see testimonials from the current students and see what their reactions were, so you don't have to just take my word for it. So again, for every one of you that's out there, it has been my mission to help to support and make better games for the world so that I can play them so that you can live a life that's creatively fulfilling and supportive to you.

And the podcast is going to continue and we're going to keep driving to do that. We also have access to an audiobook version of Think Like a Game Designer, which right now the only way to get access to that is inside of the course. You'll get a free access to that as well as a digital copy of my book, as well as a bunch of other bonuses. but either way, thank you so much for being a part of this community. And if you do want to come join us and take that next step together, go to think like a game designer.com, click on the Think Like a Game Designer Masterclass, and use code JG Podcasts to get $500 off.

We're only going to have an opening window for about two weeks here. So this podcast is going live. It's going to be a very short window because we want to get the class kicked off in the month of February 2021. So if you're thinking of joining, please do. And then I'll see you next time either way with some more. more great guests on the Think Like a Game Designer podcast.