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Definitely one of those channels you end up wishing you found earlier

I am also a game design educator, and can guarantee that I've added this video to my handouts for fundamentals. Great work!

The Genre/Mode distinction you're using here is a really good way of thinking about and discussing this. Thanks.

Very nice video,  I would love a follow up analyzing popular games that are categorized into "genres" that in your definition are actually modes or themes. Like analyzing the horror games and seeing what they are in the core mechanics

Thank you for including the little part about visual novels
I like stat raising/simulation/story driven games so the whole time I'm watching the video I was like "I see the point but how would that apply to my point and click thingys???", that small section really cleared it up for me

This video is brilliant. Love the distinction between genre and mode especially. Also really clarifies the fact that in most genre debates, people are talking past each other about different things. Saving this so I can refer people to it in the future.

This is my favorite video I've seen of yours so far.
I doubt any model will be 100% airtight, but this pyramid offers a pretty solid guideline for amateurs like myself.

I want to thank you for the video, especially the parts with a focus on roguelikes, because I've been thinking a lot about if the game I want to make is a roguelike, or roguelite, or neither.
But being able to say that it's a top-down, grid based, turn based dungeon crawler with a slight positionning element to combat ( that just happens to use proceduraly generated dungeon, but might not progress like a typical roguelike ) feels liberating. It's a more precise scope for prototyping and helps a lot.
(Although, I do like having two prototypes, one for the mechanics and core gameplay that slowly gets expended to a full game, and one that's just a toy to play around with the style and mood, just to know that I am able to make the vision for the mood come true, without putting hours mixing it with the prototype that keeps evolving)

I just want to thank you for this video and your channel. This completely made me rethink my game and helped me resolve my system issues. I now have a new GDD and I'm making good progress. I'll send you the game when it's playable!

16:18 Reminds me a lot of Scott McCloud's six steps. Continues to be relevant for all art ever. Fantastic description of how it applies to games :)

Man If I were half as good at explaining things as you are I could've avoided most of the social conflicts in my life.

This channel is gonna explode I can feel it super high quality videos and amazing advices

3:09 as a non-game developer, I will definitely be using this video to win arguments and debates online, cheers

In all seriousness this is a fascinating topic. Reflecting on the colossal failure of Ashes of Creation you can see how even a huge development studio of 200+ people overly focused on Progression Systems with Nodes or Guilds/Families/Alliances or Class-Augmentation matrices collapsed with a missing base. They spent thousands of hours honing these Mode systems while overlooking problems with the Core Mechanics of boring combat, broken economies, or lackluster player interactions.

Whenever they came out with a showcase or alpha they had all these new shiny systems to show off, but players always complained that the core mechanics were unfun, leading to them never being able to move towards commercial release. And they would always answer "don't worry, it's an Alpha, we'll iron these out later", when that's exactly the pitfall described here. You CAN'T work out your core after the fact, since late-stage development failures with the core will always cause wasted work in the mode and mood stages.

Highly recommended this channel to any solo dev 👀, Im no expert but i feel this channel might have become the best game design help and wisdom channel around I get better with every video, love your work and appreciate the wisdom bro 🙏👏

This channel gives such good advice.

I totally relate. I've always wanted to make games starting from a specific mood or scenery. After learning character movement and camera settings, and using a few free assets to build a random generator, I'd wander around thinking, ‘Now what do I make? What should I do?’
And looking back now, I realize it didn't necessarily have to be a game.

16:33 oh, the triangle also helps with understanding too down vs bottom up game design or development.

THANK YOU for this!!!I I've been going insane trying to wrap my head around genre in games and this has been a massive help!

Thanks Joe.
I was coming to the same conclusion this last couple of days myself and then this video dropped. Ive been too focused on vibe and story without really thinking about the actual gameplay mechanics.