Roles
The term role-playing is applied very loosely to games. Not only has it come to mean something completely different when used to describe video games than the pen-and-paper games that originated it, but it has drifted away from its obvious…
To Sleep
I have been trying to fix the way I sleep. My general habit, over the last decade or so, has been to stay awake until I get tired, then go to sleep until I wake up. This is nice in…
Words
I don’t consider myself exceptionally awkward in social situations, but I don’t think I’m particularly comfortable in them either. Much of the time, particularly in emotionally loaded moments, I have no idea what to say – no idea what an…
Feedback
I’ve been having a rough week or so, in terms of motivation. It’s been difficult for me to get much done. The silver lining to this, as much as there is one, is that it’s an opportunity for introspection: A…
Expert
I want to be good at things. Obviously I would like to be good at art and music and such in order to make good art and to make money to support myself – and, yes, there’s the darker aspect…
DevBlog, March 2018: Foundations
The new project is underway. I frequently miss working on EverEnding, and so far I haven’t gotten to do the sorts of things I really came to this project for, but I’m also getting really excited about some of the…
Force
You’re writing a story. You know what happens next – what has to happen next in order to complete the narrative arc you’ve been planning out. You’ve got a Big Picture you’re trying to paint, here. The only problem is,…
Look
Much as I’d like to think of time spent enjoying good art as a sort of exercise of the mind and the spirit, there’s an assumption there that I wonder about sometimes – no, not the mental or spiritual benefits…
Components
It turns out that the skill of making games is more than just the skills of making the components of a game. This is something I feel like I’ve had to confront more and more: Despite spending a lot of…
Risk and Reward
One of the most common ways to evaluate a game design decision is in terms of “risk and reward”. Usually we assume that that whenever the player takes a risk it should be to attain a commensurate reward, and so…