GDC Courses

Destructible Environments in Control - Lessons in Procedural Destruction

Lessons learned building Control’s destructible world through material-driven behavior, procedural destruction, simulation entities, toolchains, optimization, and testing.

• YouTube
• 30 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Knowledge is Power - An Overview of Knowledge Representation in Game AI

Explore how game AI represents world knowledge—from navigation and smart objects to influence maps—to make decisions feel impactful to players.

• YouTube
• 31 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Data-Driven or Data-Blinded? Uses and Abuses of Analytics in Games

Avoid statistical pitfalls in game analytics by improving data quality, designing rigorous tests, and interpreting results in context.

• YouTube
• 1 hour
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

High Resolution Pixel Art and Animation

Learn to create high-resolution pixel art with fluid, appealing motion for game development through silhouettes, spacing, smears, overlapping action, color, and shading.

• YouTube
• 29 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

It's About Time - System Design for Mobile Free-to-Play

Explore game systems design for mobile free-to-play games through time, player progression, economies, combat balance, unit balancing, and other mechanics.

• YouTube
• 26 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Emergent Storytelling Techniques in The Sims

Explore how The Sims uses autonomy, ambiguity, randomness, and feedback loops to generate player-driven stories across four generations.

• YouTube
• 1 hour 2 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Writing Tools Faster - Design Decisions to Accelerate Tool Development

A GDC talk on design decisions, frameworks, performance techniques, and UI architecture that make game-development tools faster and easier to build.

• YouTube
• 1 hour
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Developing Artifacts of Play for Your Tabletop Games

Learn how artifacts of play can make tabletop game experiences more immersive, resonant, and impactful.

• YouTube
• 24 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Bleeding-Edge Effects on Mobile

Learn to build mobile-game visual effects using dynamic UV masks, blood trails, softbody deformation, signed distance functions, and sphere tracing.

• YouTube
• 24 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Intrinsically Motivated Teams - Applying Self-Determination Theory

Learn how Self-Determination Theory can build intrinsically motivated teams that sustain high performance and work satisfaction.

• YouTube
• 27 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

The Forest Paths Method for Accessible Narrative Design

The Forest Paths method helps game developers develop narrative alongside game design through high concepts, dramatic questions, reversals, escalation, and vertical slices.

• YouTube
• 38 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Geometry in Milliseconds - Real-Time Constructive Solid Geometry

Learn how hierarchical Constructive Solid Geometry can be implemented in real time by finding brush intersections, combining polygons, and generating meshes for game levels.

• YouTube
• 47 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Game Server Performance on Tom Clancy's The Division 2

A technical look at improving game server performance in The Division 2 through parallelization and multithreading.

• YouTube
• 37 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Reading the Rules of Baba Is You

A developer explains how Baba Is You’s sentence-based rule system was implemented, iterated, and reworked through Lua tables, conditional words, and diagrams.

• YouTube
• 1 hour 4 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk

Crafting a Tiny Open World - A Short Hike Postmortem

A Short Hike’s postmortem on making a small open-world game through visual constraints, custom Unity shaders, terrain tools, and deliberate design shortcuts.

• YouTube
• 31 minutes
• Self-Paced
• Conference Talk