Required resources for game designers

In this topic, I want to present a selection of resources that are directly related to the design and development of games. First of all, this information will be useful for beginners or future game designers who only think about choosing a profession, but perhaps professionals of the business will find something useful or interesting for themselves. In addition, I assume that readers are fluent in English, that in our time for IT people, present or future, is implied almost by default.
So let's go.

1. Sloperama

Perhaps the most useful resource that can be recommended to future game creators. Tom Sloper, a game designer with great experience, describes in detail all areas of the game development, simultaneously answering readers' questions. The design of the site itself can shock modern IT people with its structure and frames, but the information itself, divided into lessons, is very valuable, and, most importantly, completely free. The lessons cover all aspects of game design: the possibility of selling your ideas, writing a documented game project, the workflow and stages of creating games, preparing for a game design career and choosing an educational institution, correct design of your resume and tips for conducting presentations, pitfalls and rules for success, testing games and career opportunities, indie development and legal protection of their ideas and projects, as well as many other things. In addition, Tom offers links to useful books and articles that are somehow related to the game design and gaming business.

2. GameDev

The largest igrostroynoe community where you can find, literally, everything related to the creation of games: advice and parting words, answers to questions and ranting about anything, modeling and drawing lessons, technical details and nuances of game engines, platforms and programming languages , vacancies and ... and ... Oh yeah, I already said this - you can find everything there!
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3. Gamasutra

Another very popular resource among igrodelov. Industry news, developer blogs, constantly updated job offers, digital editions of Game Developer (paid) and GameCareerGuide (free) specialized magazines.

4. GameCareerGuide

This site is related to the hamasutra and belongs to the same company, so the materials on both are similar, but the gamecareerguide is more student-oriented. Here you can find descriptions of specialized schools, academies and colleges that you can enroll in future game designers. This section, unfortunately, will be of little use to domestic readers, since All schools listed are in English speaking countries. Also on the site you can download free games created by students of various schools.

5. Nerfbat

Nerfbat is the blog of Ryan Schweider, the game designer of notorious 38 Studios. In his blog, he publishes brief lessons-rules for beginning game designers of MMO games. In addition to useful instructions, the site contains 15 laws of online communities.

6. Gamedev.stackexchange

Resource completely similar to stackoverflow.com. Does not need special explanations. Everything is very simple. You ask a question - get an answer.

7. Devmaster

This site with a fairly large community is focused primarily on specialists working with computer graphics. Here you can find materials on programming shaders, rendering, lighting. And on the forum you are very likely to get an answer to any question regarding the game development. An additional advantage of the resource is the availability of a database for game developers, in which you can find descriptions and links to game engines, 3D software, books, development resources, game companies.

8. Moddb

The largest community of modders for games. A huge number of mods, all kinds of manuals and lessons, news, blogs and videos, links to indie games, as well as just a huge database of game companies and engines.

That's all for now. I will omit the presentation of books on game design, because there are so many of them, and for this you can issue a separate topic. And those who wish to read the specialized literature in the meantime can use the list of books on the Tom Cloper website described above. Thanks for attention.

Update.
Other useful resources offered by users of habrakhabra:
- dtf.ru
- gamedev.ru
- flashgameblogs.ru
- flashgamedev.ru
- gameinstitute.ru