I was speaking with pixelante recently and we both agreed that the ability to cheat is essential to being a good game designer. No, I don’t mean that you should look over the shoulder of Petri Purho to copy his next game. This type of cheating is a bit different. Cheating by Design Cheating for [...]
I bought Another World from GOG today. This game is laced with nostalgia for me, it’s a fragment from a time when every new game was wondrous. Somewhere in between now and then I lost interest in most games and became jaded. Funny how these things sneak up on you. The design isn’t much to talk about, by [...]
I’ve had a minor revelation today. It’s not overly original, but it was meaningful to me. Perhaps you will find it useful too. I’m in the middle of deciding if I want to make games full-time. It’s a pretty scary decision – lots of uncertainty down that path. Because of my semi-schizophrenic personality, one of the doubts manifests [...]
I’ve been very unhappy with how slowly the development of Power to the People is going. I’ve concluded that one problem is trying to do development in little bits. This week I’m going to try something different. I’ll stop trying to develop mid-week and clear up time for the weekend. This way I can concentrate [...]
I like to divide game design into two areas: micro-design and macro-design. Macro-design is all about grand theories and exploring the unknown. It’s how you come up with the initial idea. By contrast, micro-design is what you do when you already have an idea and you need to make it into a game. This new [...]
What do the following games have in common? Braid Crayon Physics Deluxe Blueberry Garden Gish Portal Specter Spelunker Shrinks If you answered that all of these games have been highly praised for their design, you get a (tiny) cookie. Four of them are IGF winners and Portal needs no introduction. The odd one out – [...]
I just found out that the piracy post got linked from reddit and such. Apparently, talking about touchy subjects is great for generating publicity. And I was only half-joking when I said that you should write an article on piracy. I doubt that it generates persistent traffic, though. It’ll be interesting to watch analytics for [...]
I’ve added the first suggestion to Power to the People – the Zombie. The zombie will be the easiest opponent to deal with; you can easily evade it due to its slow speed.
One big challenge with making games and having a regular job is that you have so little time to work. I constantly feel like unrelated tasks, like cleaning the apartment, suck up time from game development. Today, I’m going to make a concentrated push to finish the first episode of Power to the People.
Right off the bat, I have to give Tim Ferriss the award for creative nonfiction. There’s the wrinkle that it’s supposed to be a self-help book, but who cares about small details like that? The premise of the text is that it’s going to teach everyone how to live a life of effortless relaxation. This [...]
Attack of the Paper Zombies
