While trying to use propaganda posts in Sins of a Solar Empire last week, I started thinking about cultural control in strategy gaming, how culture assimilation is an either/or proposition, how an homogeneous culture is assumed to be better than one with spillover from neighbors, how rival cultures bring nothing with them but trouble. Then […]
Entries Tagged as 'Design'
Culture as a Mechanic or, Get Out of My Head Michael
March 3rd, 2008 · 5 Comments · Blogs, Design, Firaxis, History
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Thoughts on Appeasement and Compellence
February 27th, 2008 · 15 Comments · Design, History
The always interesting Vic Davis has recently posted about appeasement as an historical tactic and game mechanic. Appeasement as a strategy is often a bad choice. It can be a catastrophic choice under certain conditions. Perhaps the most famous from the last century is the sad spectacle of the Munich Conference in 1938 and Neville […]
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Ten Challenges for Game Design
February 24th, 2008 · Comments Off on Ten Challenges for Game Design · Design, GDC
Game, Set, Watch has posted a summary of Jonathan Blow’s GDC talk about how we think about game design, and, more importantly, how what we think affects the challenges that face designers. Read it. I haven’t fully absorbed what exactly Blow is getting at or what the take-away should be for critics and analysts, let […]
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“The economics are ugly”
February 20th, 2008 · 23 Comments · Consoles, Design, Gas Powered Games, RTS
In an interview with IGN, Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games makes it clear that he is not optimistic about the future of the PC as a gaming platform, even for such dyed-in-the-wool PC genres like real time strategy. It’s just a good business decision to have your game of any kind on a console […]
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Telling Tales
February 14th, 2008 · 7 Comments · Design
Neil Sorens has written an interesting article for Gamasutra about the place of stories in “sandbox” games. I’m not sure that I would put grand strategy games like Civ and Europa Universalis in the sandbox category, but that’s a semantic distinction I don’t want to dwell on for the moment. Like many observers, he pays […]
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Sins Interview
February 6th, 2008 · 13 Comments · Design, Interview, Ironclad
Don’t miss Kieron Gillen’s interview with Blair Fraser, lead designer of this month’s addiction, Sins of a Solar Empire and Stardock’s Brad Wardell. Highlights from the interview: On why they focused on what they focused on: I can’t count how many times I’ve looked at that list during a game purchase only to be disappointed […]
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