“A designer with tremendous traditional art or architectural experience will not succeed if he cannot grasp issues such as framerate, gameflow and pacing. A designer who understands these elements yet has no architectural or art experience is doomed to fail as well. …The best level designers are never afraid to step back and re-evaluate their content. Often this requires a period of respite from the work in question; distance can clear up a clouded mind. A great designer isn’t afraid to throw content out or re-work a concept that needs attention.”

“Characters that display emotion are critical to a rich and believable simulated environment, especially when those characters interact with real people possessing real emotions. Emotion is the essential element that creates the difference between robotic behavior and lifelike, engaging behavior.”

Nadav called it “Yahoo! for game development,” and he’s right. This is a nice, big, categorized collection of links.

“For every game that sets the high-water mark in design and/or game play, there are dozens of titles that don’t. Why is that? I’ve discovered a number of possible reasons. Many games are made by people who shoot from the hip instead of taking a good and proper aim at success, many designers are relatively new to their jobs and aren’t certain what’s expected of them, and few development companies have established a formal design processes for creating and implementing a game.”

By Scott Kim: “As a computer game designer, I’m always looking for new ideas. One of the best places to look is in earlier non-computer games, such as board games, mechanical puzzles, and paper-and-pencil games. There’s also a wealth of material in books about recreational mathematics that is aching to be exploited. But there’s more to translating an idea into the computer medium than merely copying it. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned about what works. Most of the examples come from puzzle games — my specialty — but many of the lessons apply to other sorts of games as well.”

“Flashgamer.com — Your source for free Flash 4 online games. Play games at no charge. All games created with Macromedia Flash 4. 100% Flash, 100% Fun… As of today, the site features 8 timewasters made with Flash, and more is to come.”

“In the fall of 1989, before ‘virtual’ was a reality and before the appearance of interactive multimedia, CD-ROMs, and something called the World Wide Web, the American Museum of the Moving Image surveyed the history of the world’s first digital entertainment medium with the exhibition Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade.”

In Public Beta. “SiSSYFiGHT 2000 is, like, an intense war between a bunch of girls who are all out to ruin each other’s popularity and self-esteem. The object is to physically attack and majorly dis your enemies until they are totally mortified beyond belief. You’ll never come out on top without making the right friends, so be careful who you’re nice to. Because in the end, only the shrewdest will survive with their social status intact!”

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Great classic games like Centipede, Frogger, Missile Command and Super Breakout.