Competency
I often end up choosing which games to play on the basis of which I am best at– familiarity begets skill begets more familiarity. It’s very fulfilling to do something you’re good at, even if it’s pointless. This kind of…
Immortality
It is difficult for games to create truly memorable characters. Because the characters who populate our worlds can behave in many different ways, based on the design of the game and the role they play within it, it’s an awkward…
Eve DevBlog 26: Inertia
I’m noticing that I tend to start a lot of these updates off by talking about what a weird week it was, which seems like a bad habit. That said, it was still kind of a weird week. I may…
Drive Failure
“For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn” Ernest Hemingway (maybe) I’d guess maybe fifteen years ago we were driving along on some sort of road trip or camping trip, my dad and my brother and me. I was riding in the…
No Update Today
Today’s update has been preempted by 8 hours of driving. Sorry. I’m not thrilled about it either.
Eve DevBlog 25: Writing the Angles
Kind of a weird week since I spent all of my Eve time on writing more level flow and story. I know it’s real work, but it don’t always feel like it… Here’s where I’m at. There are four chapters…
Other Lives
Isn’t it strange how complex and overwhelming our feelings about fictional people can become? There is a conflict of impulses: The sympathetic and the dramatic. We want characters to be happy for the same reason we want our friends and…
No Accountability
Something I always liked about playing Final Fantasy games in particular and JRPGs in general is the way random deities tended to turn up as various monsters in the world. These creatures usually had approximately fuck-all to do with their…
Eve DevBlog 24: Flow State
This week was mostly dedicated to writing out level flows. I’ve planned out most of Chapter 2 in general terms, and all that’s left to do to complete this phase of Chapter 2’s design is to plan out a few…
Stories
The more one pays attention to things, the more one notices similarities. I’m spending a lot of time, now, writing– stories and essays, but they both have a similar rhythm. Exposition, twist, resolution. I can add more twist, or alternate…