Soren Johnson of EA/Maxis (that still doesn’t feel right…) is working on his own top eight list – Eight Things Not to Do in game design. He’s only got the first four up so far, but I’ll certainly have comments when the list is complete. I think I see some common themes running through his […]
Entries Tagged as 'Design'
The Eight Greatest Features
August 8th, 2007 · 12 Comments · Design
Juuso at Gameproducer.net has just posted what he thinks are the 7 greatest things you can put in a game that would appeal to him. It’s a fairly wide ranging list, but I’d collapse his number 6 (reflective water) and 7 (details), since, for me, reflective water is a little detail. It’s nice, sure and […]
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Training Camp
August 2nd, 2007 · 15 Comments · Design
I’m not sure we need a manifesto for tutorials and manuals, but Nayan Ramachandran has written one anyway. And it has some solid points to make about the place and purpose of these training tools in contemporary game design. (Spotted at Game, Set, Watch.) Ramachandran diagnoses the problem thusly: For the most part, people seem […]
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Round Table Entry: Artificial Humanity
July 23rd, 2007 · 6 Comments · Design, Round Table
My gaming forum of choice has just discovered Tom Francis’ after action report of a Galactic Civilizations II campaign. As I noted in my brief mention of this AAR a couple of months ago, there’s some curiosity about how much rationalizing Francis is doing to account for the AI’s actions. This rationalization could be seen […]
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The Zeal of the Convert
May 24th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Design, History
Best-selling historian Niall Ferguson has written an essay about his experiences with Muzzy Lane’s Making History: The Calm and the Storm. Ferguson is thrilled to find out that he can test counterfactuals with PC strategy games. I’ve always loved counterfactuals and alternate histories. (What if Alexander had lived to consolidate his empire? What if Pompey […]
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World War I and Game Design
April 16th, 2007 · 12 Comments · Design, History, WW1
My homeland is going through another spasm of celebration of its grand nation building moment. For Canada, this isn’t the 1867 Confederation or even the completion of the transcontinental railway that linked East and West. Instead, the First World War is oft cited as the point when a Dominion with no independent foreign policy took […]
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