I came across this great video today of John Cleese giving a lecture about creativity. Watch:
Archive of posts filed under the game development category.
Little Games
On Wednesday the New York Times Magazine published a really interesting article that talks a little about gamification and a lot about specifically the type of games, often found on Facebook and mobile devices, that capitalize on the snippets of “free” time everyone has between doing other things. It’s definitely worth a read; go check it [...]
More about the Mojang/Zenimax settlement
More news sites are realizing today what the Scrolls trademark going to Zenimax means for Mojang. Of course, they still haven’t really said anything about how little sense the whole thing makes. I think Zenimax Media gets better treatment than Tim Langdell by gaming news sites just because it actually makes games people enjoy.
Scrolls Settlement
Am I the only one who doesn’t think this settlement is good news? GamaSutra has a short article today pointing out the problem with this agreement, but in my opinion the problem is more fundamental than that: Zenimax never had any right to the Scrolls trademark.
Kickstarter Success
If you hadn’t heard, Double Fine Productions is going to be making a new point-and-click adventure game with Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert headlining the team, funded entirely through a Kickstarter project which went live last night. It’s big news today: this is the fastest-funded Kickstarter project ever, and already the one with the most backers [...]
Reality is Broken
This morning (yesterday morning now; I’ve been working on this post all day) I followed a link shared on Twitter by Jamie Madigan and Brenda Brathwaite to read an article entitled “I Don’t Want to be a Superhero.” Having read through almost all of Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards by now, it got me thinking [...]
Punished by Rewards
I’m reading the book Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, at the suggestion of Jonathan Blow. It’s incredibly interesting, and I think should be required reading for most adults. It is interesting for game design, but also for managers, teachers, parents, and I would think most other people.
Musings on Game Plots
Alan Tew made an interesting observation on his LittleBot Studios blog: that the plot of escaping enslavement lends itself especially well to the video game medium. This led me to wonder what other sorts of plots might also lend themselves well to the medium, and I decided to do my musing here. This will be [...]
More on Ethics in Game Design
Jonathan Blow recently gave a talk at Rice University about ethics in game design. It vocalizes well my opinions on the matter; I agree with all of it, basically. Even if you don’t agree with it, though, it should get you thinking. Check it out here.
This Celestial Life
I’ve been working on a game lately when I have time. It’s probably way too early to talk about but I’m going to say a little anyway. The title of the game is “This Celestial Life” and it’s sort of my take on the Japanese dating sim. It isn’t really about dating, though; it’s basically [...]
Cryptic
There’s a new interview at Rock, Paper, Shotgun with Jack Emmert from Cryptic discussing the recently-announced game they’re working on, Neverwinter. I have a hunch that it will flop, with all the attendant consequences for Cryptic and Atari that implies. I could be completely wrong; it wouldn’t be the first time nor the last.
Game Toolbox 0.2.1 Released
This fixes the suboptimal example plan in the 0.2.0 release. The issue was not with the planner but with how the problem was set up. Get it here.
Game Toolbox 0.2.0 Released
Over the weekend I released Game Toolbox 0.2.0. You can get it here.
Achievements
While reading this Malstrom blog post this morning, I realized something interesting: Achievements/Trophies/whatever can reduce the desire to keep a game, increasing motivation to resell it. Sure, they can create some sales from people playing the gamer score metagame (who will just turn around and resell it once they’ve got the points), but consider a [...]
