The ten designers

Lineage

Forty-five years on one axis. Hover a mark for the game; click a name for the entry.

Lessons by theme

What each designer's lessons are about. Read down a column to see who taught the field about space, or systems, or who plays.

The ranking

1. 01

   Shigeru Miyamotodraft

   Japanese · 1977 to present · Nintendo

   Designer of Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda, and the person most responsible for the idea that a level can teach without a word of text. His method is to get the core movement right, then arrange the world so the player discovers the rules by acting on them.

   Donkey Kong (1981) · Super Mario Bros. (1985) · The Legend of Zelda (1986) · Super Mario 64 (1996) · Ocarina of Time (1998) · Pikmin (2001)

   • Teach with placement, not text
   • Get the verb right before you build the world
   • Design the feeling of a place you remember

   In the atlas: World 1-1

2. 02

   Will Wrightdraft

   American · 1984 to present · Maxis, Stupid Fun Club, Gallium Studios

   Designer of SimCity, The Sims, and Spore. Wright treats a game as a system the player learns by poking it, and treats the emergent range of that system as the thing being designed. He shipped the best-selling PC game of its era without a win condition to prove it.

   SimCity (1989) · SimAnt (1991) · The Sims (2000) · Spore (2008)

   • Design the possibility space, not the path
   • A toy with no win state makes failure the story
   • Make the people dumb and the objects smart
3. 03

   Sid Meierdraft

   Canadian-American · 1982 to present · MicroProse, Firaxis Games

   Designer of Pirates!, Railroad Tycoon, and Civilization. Meier gave the field its most quoted definition of a game and, in two GDC talks, the clearest account of why players feel the way they do about odds, turns, and choices.

   Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987) · Railroad Tycoon (1990) · Civilization (1991) · Alpha Centauri (1999) · Civilization IV (2005)

   • A game is a series of interesting decisions
   • Design for the player's psychology, not the math
   • One third kept, one third improved, one third new
4. 04

   Hidetaka Miyazakidraft

   Japanese · 2004 to present · FromSoftware

   Director of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. Miyazaki rebuilt the relationship between difficulty, space, and story: the world loops so that mastery is spatial, the story arrives in fragments, and strangers help without speaking.

   Demon's Souls (2009) · Dark Souls (2011) · Bloodborne (2015) · Sekiro (2019) · Elden Ring (2022)

   • Difficulty is the price of accomplishment, not the product
   • Fold the world back on itself
   • Tell the story in fragments the player assembles
   • Let strangers help without letting them talk

   In the atlas: Undead Burg

5. 05

   Warren Spectordraft

   American · 1983 to present · Origin Systems, Looking Glass Studios, Ion Storm Austin, Junction Point Studios, OtherSide Entertainment

   Producer of Ultima Underworld and System Shock, director of Deus Ex, and the most persistent advocate for the immersive sim. His rules for Deus Ex, problems not puzzles and always show the goal, define a genre where the player's plan is the content.

   Ultima Underworld (1992) · System Shock (1994) · Thief: The Dark Project (1998) · Deus Ex (2000) · Epic Mickey (2010)

   • Problems, not puzzles
   • Always show the goal
   • An inch wide and a mile deep
   • Name your tools: intention and perceivable consequence
6. 06

   John Romerodraft

   American · 1989 to present · Softdisk, id Software, Ion Storm, Romero Games

   Level designer of Doom and Quake, and the person who wrote down what a good first-person map is. His eight Doom rules are still the shortest useful level design course there is. He also turned a Super Mario Bros. 3 clone into the studio that invented the modern shooter.

   Commander Keen (1990) · Wolfenstein 3D (1992) · Doom (1993) · Quake (1996) · Sigil (2019)

   • Level design is contrast management
   • Loop the player back so the space becomes a place
   • Keep the game shippable every day

   In the atlas: E1M1: Hangar

7. 07

   Hideo Kojimadraft

   Japanese · 1986 to present · Konami, Kojima Productions

   Director of Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid, and Death Stranding. Kojima invented stealth as a genre out of a sprite limit, made the console itself part of the story, and built a game whose multiplayer is other people's leftover bridges.

   Metal Gear (1987) · Snatcher (1988) · Metal Gear Solid (1998) · Metal Gear Solid 3 (2004) · Metal Gear Solid V (2015) · Death Stranding (2019)

   • Turn the hardware limit into the genre
   • The controller and the screen are part of the fiction
   • Make connection the mechanic
8. 08

   Toru Iwatanidraft

   Japanese · 1977 to 2007 · Namco

   Designer of Pac-Man. Iwatani made an arcade game for people who did not go to arcades, gave four identical sprites four personalities with four rules, and put a full tension-and-release cycle inside one screen.

   Pac-Man (1980) · Libble Rabble (1983) · Pac-Man Championship Edition (2007)

   • Design for the audience the arcade ignores
   • Personality is behavior, not art
   • Build the relief into the loop
9. 09

   Fumito Uedadraft

   Japanese · 1995 to present · Warp, Sony Japan Studio (Team Ico), genDESIGN

   Director of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian. Ueda designs by removing: no HUD, no filler, one relationship carried in the controls. His games are short, sparse, and among the most cited in the field.

   Ico (2001) · Shadow of the Colossus (2005) · The Last Guardian (2016)

   • Design by subtraction
   • Put the relationship in the controls
   • The boss is the level
10. 10

    Jenova Chendraft

    Chinese-American · 2005 to present · thatgamecompany

    Designer of flOw, Flower, Journey, and Sky. Chen brought flow theory from psychology into the design process, then built games whose only spec was a feeling. Journey's anonymous co-op is the clearest case of a social system designed by removal.

    Cloud (2005) · flOw (2006) · Flower (2009) · Journey (2012) · Sky: Children of the Light (2019)

    • Let the player steer their own difficulty
    • Pick the feeling first, then build only what makes it
    • Design the multiplayer so strangers cannot be cruel