Mission... incomplete
May 1st, 2010
There's one question that I keep coming back to when thinking about game design: how do you tell the difference between a game that's fun to play, and one that's painful to stop playing? Subjectively, it can be hard to tell the difference, and objectively, players will buy and play one just as much as the other ...
Saving the world, one plot twist at a time
April 25th, 2010
There is a formula to game plots, which goes like this. The leader of an evil conspiracy kidnaps or kills the player's family and friends. The player then destroys the evil conspiracy by killing the conspirators one after the other. Along the way, he usually discovers that his 'friends' are actually part of an even worse conspiracy, so he ...
Feedback In Game Design
April 21st, 2010
This is a guest blog by Chris Hazard of Hazardous Software Inc., the makers of the upcoming time travel RTS, Achron. Feedback is a part of every day life. It occurs when the output of something is put back in as input. Positive Feedback Imagine that you're going to a local sporting event on the weekend, and because of ...
Alternatives to killing
March 10th, 2010
In most action games, every battle lasts until one side has been completely exterminated. The victory condition is binary -- if all the enemies are dead, you have won. If some of them are still alive, you haven't won yet. This is a traditional design that video games have used since the beginning, but it is evolving much more slowly ...
Great game development books
February 21st, 2010
When John saw my bookshelf filled with game development books, he suggested that I write a blog post about them. At first, this seemed like a daunting task -- there are a lot of books, and different books are useful for different people. Which ones should I talk about first? However, after looking through them some more, I realized that I ...
Freedom versus Challenge
February 1st, 2010
This is a guest blog post from Wilbefast. He is a long time community member, has made a number of his own games, and always posts excellent commentary. I get the feeling that many of the industry's game-developers secretly wish they were film-makers instead. "Cinematic" is often a selling point; but as a consumer, I'd sooner watch a ...
An Introduction to AI in Games from Phil Carlisle
January 24th, 2010
This is a guest post from Phil Carlisle, best known for his work on the Worms series. You might remember his post from a couple of weeks ago, here. His last post was very well received, and he agreed to write a follow up! Read on below. Last time, I talked about a number of potential behavioural artifacts that I ...