Over at Amber’s blog, she references a speech made at the GDC wherein the speaker called the Wii “a piece of shit” and also stated that Nintendo doesn’t care about games as art, because if you search their site for that phrase it doesn’t appear. Well, that’s hardly a scientific analysis. As someone who has […]
Emergent Properties, 10:1 Rule, and Brute Force
A really good way came to me to explain what emergent properties are. You know when you write something, like a story or a poem, and someone says “Oh, I really like the subtext about such and such.” And you think about it, and yeah, there is subtext about such and such, but you didn’t […]
Workshopping Games (and not Games Workshop)
The problem with taking several writing classes at once is that they ALL want to teach you how to workshop, even though there’s only so much you can teach about being a critical thinker about a piece of artistic expression. A lot of it is having experience in the field in question. For example, I’m […]
More on the Tragedy of Multiplayer (Spotlighting Wario Ware)
The name “Wii” caused a number of reactions in the online community, ranging from those who swore they would not buy it to those who thought it was an interesting name that set it apart from the field. Through it all, Nintendo swore that the reason for the change was that it would bring people […]
Destroying Your Childhood, One Game at a Time
So last week I asked for requests on games that I could trash for game design reasons, and I got a pretty decent list of the usual suspects. So here we go:
It's Now Official
Due to how busy I’ve been this week, I’m not able to present my normal indepth (read: long) commentary about design. There are a few things that I wanted to mention: WizKids has scored the Halo license, and will be producing “Halo ActionClix.” No word what, if anything, it’s going to be compatible with. I […]
What is a Good Game Anyway?
This past week, aside from dealing with massive web-related headaches, I managed to re-read Raph Koster’s excellent presentation from the 2005 Game Developer’s Conference. Any serious student of games owes it to themselves to take a look through. It’s witty, it’s fairly accesible, and it avoids being dry like many academic studies on the subject. […]
Do Push Your Luck
The aptly named Can’t Stop is the defining game of the “Push Your Luck” genre. These type of games tend to be typified by one decision: go on, or crash? The absolute simplest push your luck game I have heard called Pig. You take a 6 sided die. Roll it. If it is a 1-5, […]
The Cardinal Sin of Multiplayer Videogames (as demonstrated by Rayman's Raving Rabbids)
I’m probably using “cardinal sin” wrong here, but it’s certainly the highest issue on my list. I mainly buy videogames for multiplayer, which is one of the main reasons that I love the Wii so much. I’m sure the PS3 and Xbox 360 will have some good multiplayer titles, but I know I’m not going […]
My Favorite Published Adventure
A little break from my boardgame design tribulations, as I take a look at tabletop rpgs… Publishing adventures is a tough business nowadays. While the Open Gaming License meant that there is a wealth of adventures to choose from, it also means that anyone can put out an adventure. While review sites like ENWorld have […]
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