Welcome to November! Welcome to National Game Design Month!

A ‘NaNo Rebel’ that was spun off from NaNoWriMo* by Nathan Russell in 2010, National Game Design month is almost exactly what it says on the tin: a month dedicated to designing games of all kinds by creating, talking about, and playing them! It’s only inaccurate in terms of the first word, since people from all over the world now participate, but ‘slaying the InGaDeMon; doesn’t quite roll off the tongue or conjure images of a defeated serpentine foe.

But how, asks the neophyte game design adventurer, can I slay such a beast? Especially considering such a time limit, and the month has already started? Well, I’m no wizened elder in this regard, but I have fought against several NaGaDeMons and experienced both victory and defeat, so here are my own tips and tricks!

Join the Party

You might be a solo game designer, you might even be a solo solo-game designer, but nobody who fights the NaGaDeMon needs to do it completely alone if they don’t want to.

First of all if you’re on the socials you can always find your fellow creators – or get their notice for your own stuff – with #NaGaDeMon.

Secondly, there’s an itch.io game jam for the event – 155 participants as of this writing – with community posts and, obviously, somewhere to put your game when it’s done.

Lastly, and most importantly I would say, there’s a thriving Discord server! You can get a channel for your project for posting updates, and there are many more (aside from the general chat to talk with your fellow designers) where you can pitch ideas, find resources such as stock art, and recruit playtesters!

Aside from the specific benefits, there’s the general sense of sharing in the creative act, even if you’re doing all the work on your project yourself. It can be a big help when it comes to motivation and pushing through the rough patches.

Now, when it comes to actually doing the design work,,, (Best part, I think quite a lot if not all of this is going to be handy for any game jam-type experience.)

Big Things Are Made Of Little Things

I’ve got way too much ADHD to write out suggestions like ‘write an outline’ or ‘use a planner’ with any sort of precision or without wincing. That being said, you’ve got a certain number of days to get the project done, and while ‘1 month’ may seem like a short amount of time ‘ 30 29 days’ is much more useful for dividing up a project into more manageable bite-size chunks.

Exactly how to do this division is going to vary between projects, but I’ll use my own as an example: a Wretched & Alone game of a mecha mechanic trying to keep their machine intact and its pilot alive (chance of success: vanishingly small). Nov 1 to 4th? Just general writing, the ‘here’s what this is’ sort of thing and the base mechanics. Then there are 52 prompts to do: weekdays after the 4th are scheduled for two prompts each and each day of the weekends are scheduled for three. That will end up giving me several days at the end for things like proofreading, playtesting, editing, layout, and so-on (I’m exceeding the requirements a fair bit here too, because I want to be done-done with the project for Dec. 1st; you certainly don’t have to be, more on that later).

Just wrote a little blurb? A single prompt? A line of flavor text, or a single spell, or a unique monster’s custom attack?  Congrats, you’ve hit your goal for the day and made discernable progress in slaying the NaGaDeMon! Also, if you have a bad day, it’s not too onerous to spread that missed day’s work over the other ones, keeping things from snowballing out of control.

Embrace The Audience Of One

I can’t tell you what your overall plan for being a game designer is – just for use at home, hobbyist, side hustle, trying to make a living off of it (I sincerely wish you good luck) – but for strictly the act of creating I do have some advice, or at least an answer to a common question that pops up while doing game design. “Who is this for? Why am I making this?”

Getting a game in front of tons and tons of people can be awesome, don’t get me wrong, but having that as your goal might be a case of setting yourself up for a letdown. Set your sights lower, more personal: if one person sees/talks with you about/plays your creation and gets an enjoyable experience out of it, treasure that. It’s a rough world out there, and one person with a new good memory to hang on to isn’t the worst reward for a month’s work by a long shot.

Maybe that one person is even just you! If you enjoy the process, the act of creativity, that’s enough isn’t it? Everyone else? Bonus points!

Have Some Side Projects

Sometimes you’re going to be staring at your current project and it’s just… not happening. Not today. The stars aren’t aligned. Whether it’s proper writer’s block or just a problem you haven’t managed to puzzle out yet or there’s something else on your mind or you’re just not feeling it, no progress is going to get made today and you know it.

Now, there’s a lot of ways to deal with this, the first and most important one being to not keep trying to force it – you’ll just frustrate yourself, making a newer demon to slay that only lives in your brain whose entire existence is just about making the project harder to get back into. Instead, you might just take the day off. You might consume some other media for a bit, like reading a book or binging a show or even playing some other game with your friends. Maybe spend the time you had set aside for game design on some chores, thus clearing the mental deck for a more peaceful and focused design mind later. These are all good ideas, and I use them myself from time to time.

However, this section is about continuing to practice game design… just for something else.

They shouldn’t be as big or ambitious as your core project of the jam, and they might have nothing in common with the topics, themes, or mechanics you’re currently working with. That’s okay. The trick is to pivot away from the project that is frustrating you and make some progress somewhere else, giving your brain a bit of exercise, happy productivity chemicals, and a palette cleanser from the core project. I’ve got two, one doing some updates and revisions to Tales from the Cockpit, another slowly tinkering with a chapter for Yazeba‘s. Low intensity, not mechanically difficult, no particular rush!

An additional side benefit? If, for whatever reason, your original core project continues to peter out, but one of your side projects starts to make your brain catch fire with ideas and inspiration, then you might have a new core project to stay in the slaying game with.

You could also, oh, I don’t know, do some writing about games and game design to take a break from the writing a game thing.

Hey, I’m not writing all this only to be helpful.

Accepting that the NaGaDeMon Will Live

Not all projects are going to be completed, and it’s okay if among them is one of yours. First of all, trying is the first step in succeeding, a trite but accurate phrase, and just because you didn’t cross the finish line doesn’t mean you didn’t succeed; the ‘finish the thing within a month’ should always have been an inspiration, not an ironclad marker for failure.

Also, Nation Game Design Month isn’t just about creating the games, it’s about talking about them and playing them as well. Maybe you didn’t complete your own project, but in talking and playing with others you probably learn quite a bit yourself and help others in their own endeavors, a worthy pursuit,

Plus, so what if the NaGaDeMon got away – nothing to say you can’t keep working on the project past that point. This is actually my final bit of actual game design advice: don’t be afraid to make your goal for the month an ashcan version, a playable-but-not-complete game, something that still needs a little polish. You get to complete the event, get some feedback via all that community interaction you’re doing after joining the party, and then can work towards the true final project at your leisure with a firm foundation under you.

Finally, it’s a common saying in the discord: there are no NaGaDeMon police. Even if you don’t touch the project outside of November, no one is going to say anything about returning to a half-finished project to slay the NaGaDeMon next year instead. It always rises again, after all.

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You can find general information, resources, and a suite of handy links for National Game Design Month here, and again you can find the Discord here – I hope to see you there, I’m one of the mods! Let’s talk about, create, and play some games!

*No links for an organization that claims using AI to be ‘creative’ for you is in any way not completely missing the point. Write a novel in November, please! Just maybe not with that lot and their livery.