What this is about, including full list. It’s a hoary old cliche, but one worth repeating. A tiny island of the northern coast of Europe was once master of the world. As a Canadian living in America, the legacy of England and the United Kingdom looms large in my life, from approaches and attitudes to […]
Entries Tagged as 'Design'
The English National Character
January 12th, 2011 · 38 Comments · Design, Feature:Nations, History
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So When Are You Finished?
January 3rd, 2011 · 8 Comments · Design, Me
I was a guest on this week’s Jumping the Shark podcast, and the topic for the week (once you get past all the “what are you playing?” stuff) was whether we complete the games we play. This was not about whether reviewers have to, but about what makes us finish a game and whether we […]
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World Enough And Time
December 7th, 2010 · 10 Comments · Design, Me
Bruce’s recent post on Soldiers of Anarchy and my half-formed rant about tutorials are certainly products of our age and experience. It’s not that we are wiser – my list of follies in the past twelve months would be great fodder for Renaissance woodcarvings. It’s more a realization that time is short and games should […]
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Let Me Do Something, Please
December 4th, 2010 · 18 Comments · Design
I have almost certainly written about this before, and I know I ranted about it on a podcast or two, but my dear, dear friends in the strategy game development business: DO NOT MAKE ME CLICK THROUGH A TUTORIAL THAT IS NO MORE THAN TEXT OR “CLICK HERE”. Tutorials are hard – this I understand […]
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Three Moves Ahead Episode 93: Theme, Mechanics and Meaning
December 3rd, 2010 · 10 Comments · Design, Podcast, Three Moves Ahead
GWJ’s Lara Crigger and JTS’s Todd Brakke join Troy and special guest Soren Johnson in a wide ranging talk about how how theme and mechanics work together or fight each other. What is Left for Dead really about? Why are themes so important to Lara? How do mechanics translate meaning? Why is Civilization so […]
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The Irrelevance of World War 2
November 29th, 2010 · 15 Comments · Design, WW2
Nothing like a provocative title to get the readers, I always say. As I play through the year’s good and great games and try to figure out which ones deserve which awards, I keep coming back to RUSE, a game that could be the biggest surprise of 2010 or the biggest underperformer of 2010 or […]
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