Game length and value
August 17th, 2010
If you pay $30 for a game, how long does it have to be to get your money's worth? This is a complicated question, so I would like to look at each part independently. First I would like to discuss what 'length' means for games, then we can look at game 'value', and finally, we can think about how ...
UNabusive design, and why you WOULDN'T want to be mean to your players
July 5th, 2010
The following is a guest blog post from Wilbefast. 1 month ago, over at moddb.com: Silverfisk: BTW I like your posts on the Wolfire Blog, you should make some more. :) Wilbefast: I may well write again for Wolfire: John is keen at any rate, though I'm torn between saving my best posts for my own blog, and posting ...
Dev chat with Jack Monahan: What is the nature of games?
June 12th, 2010
I am trying a new kind of blog post: a casual chat with my friend Jack Monahan. He is a professional level designer, concept artist, and writer of the blog Design Reboot. More info on Jack can be found in this previous dev chat, or in this post showing some of his awesome art. Aubrey: Was I talking to you ...
Intuition in fighting systems: more moves isn't always better
June 10th, 2010
A while ago I did a post called game theory applied to game design. It might be good to take a quick look at that post again if you don't remember it. However, to refresh your memory, my major claims were: Giving the player a dominant strategy is a bad idea because it dooms the player to using one ...
Guest Post On Pixel Art by Simon Cottee
May 26th, 2010
Hi, I’m Simon Cottee/Lavalevel. I’m not really sure how to present myself to you, being just a dude who does some stuff and got invited to write a guest blog by John. Let’s start with our assumption of why I was even asked. I recently made an 11-minute Pixel art documentary, which obviously deals with the ...
How to make interesting games by accident
May 14th, 2010
This is a guest post by Sophie Houlden, active independent game developer and creator of the awesome Linear RPG which you may remember David linking to in his Creating the Illusion of Accomplishment Post. The blank page, is one of the greatest things ever, as well as one of the most irritating; it can become anything you imagine, the trouble ...
Stealth In Video Games And Why It's So Fun
May 2nd, 2010
The following is a guest blog post from Wilbefast on the topic of stealth mechanics in games and why they are so appealing. I didn't actually introduce myself last time around, because I thought it would be a little pretentious to assume that anyone would actually care. You see, unlike many of the people who've written guest posts ...