While as an artist I am generally fascinated with the study of technique, and the methods of self-improvement necessary to attain it, I find myself less and less interested in art which exists solely or primarily to be a showcase…
Most games are competitive in nature – some might argue that as part of the definition of game, that anything that isn’t competitive is really a puzzle or some other sort of interactive entertainment. What the word ‘competition’ even means…
I don’t know where the bottomless pit began. Maybe it’s always been there. How can something with no end have a beginning? But I think most of us first encountered the bottomless pit playing Super Mario Brothers, falling off the…
What role should frustration have in the player’s experience of a game? It’s a tricky question. For a while game designers assumed the answer was ‘none’, that frustration was an inherently unpleasant experience with nothing to offer, that it stood…
It’s interesting how much goes into a game that the player never sees. Old versions, unused content, hidden details of construction, or simply paths the player never takes. As we play the game, this stuff is invisible – sometimes we find…
The problem with dialogue system components in RPGs tends to be that they’re components in RPGs. I’ve been playing Fallout: New Vegas: This game, like the earlier Fallout games, is premised on making important dialogue choices which can have a…
Over time I’ve started moderating my consumption of media the same way one might moderate their consumption of food or of drugs – by closely monitoring how I feel and react afterwards, what the short and long term effects are,…
So I’ve come to a decision to not write about The Beginner’s Guide, and I think this decision requires some explanation. Obviously, yes, by stating that I’m not writing about it, and then by explaining that statement, I am writing…
Every aspect of a game communicates something about the overall experience of the game. It’s very easy, and very common, for these signals to be confusing and conflicted: Yet it’s hard to say definitively that these conflicts are flaws or…
It’s useful knowing what team you’re on. Red vs Blue, Shirts vs Skins, Us vs Them: In game design, we try to make that difference obvious on first glance, we make the shapes different, tall and thin vs short and…
