One of the few bad things about a site like Gamasutra is that you'll find a lot of worthless articles from people who don't actually make great games and are often lacking actual development experience addressing game design and development issues, relying solely from "theory." For an example, [url="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3765/the_designers_notebook_the_tao_.php"]read this[/url].
However, when a successful game developer is interviewed, you can get a lot of tasty gems on game design. Such is the case with Hirokazu Yasuhara, who has worked on many successful titles, from Sonic 1 and 2 to the Jak & Daxter series and Uncharted.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3769/game_design_psychology_the_full_.php?page=1
[quote]I was about to ask you all the rest of the games you worked on, but I don't know if that's too much... Oh, you have them?
HY: These are some of my old game designs. Boy, I have a lot.
Oh! Why do you have that here?
HY: (laughs) These are the games I was working on apart from Sonic the Hedgehog. Some of these didn't come out. There was Sonic & Knuckles...I worked on Sonic 1, 2, and 3, then I went to London for Sonic R with Sega Europe.
After that, I got some money from Sega of Japan to work on games and ride technology projects for Disney, and after that, Sega had bought Visual Concepts around that time, though they're called 2K now, so I worked with them on Floigan Bros. for the Dreamcast for a bit. After that, Sega dropped out of hardware, so I moved on to Naughty Dog and worked on Jak 2, Jak 3, Jak X, and then Uncharted.
Also, if the game design talk doesn't interest you, just read the last page for a small history on Sonic and how he ended up working for one of the top Western developers before moving to Namco Bandai of America.
It's weird, I read Gamasutra articles and walk away with the idea that game design is mostly an enigma, amazingly complicated and to be studied and dissected like an entirely new species.
Then I read ActionButton and realise it's pretty much just common sense. I actually read this article before you posted it, the stuff this guy talks about is hardly high art or rocket science, is it? There's nothing he says that's really profound, it'd just come to you if you thought about games at all. I respect him for that as well as being comforted by it. He is one common sensical dude.
I find it kind of cool that his idea of doodling the gimmicks of each level first was exactly how I approached designing a TF2 map.
Thanks for posting the article...Fantastic read!