I have a short attention span, and I’m easily distracted by shiny new toys. This means I have games in my Steam library with total play times of only an hour or two. I’ll even confess to owning a couple of games that I’ve played for 8-10 minutes and never touched again. (To be fair, …
Over the years, I’ve taken feedback notes for a LOT of playtest sessions. Several studios I’ve worked for, notably Ensemble, relied heavily on an iterative process. Team playtesting was a factor in decision-making and identifying the next steps. It was an “agile” process (small-A) before there was Agile. While the weekly sessions could sometimes get …
Get ready – I’m about to badly date myself. When I was in sixth grade, one of my teachers started up an after-school Dungeons and Dragons club. Yeah, you don’t need to say it: it was a long, long time ago. Tom Hanks’ epic Mazes and Monsters breakdown was still to come, and Jack Chick’s …
Back in September, I wrote about how the business plan for Scree Games changed over the course of the first year. I spent the recent holiday reflecting further on my long-term goals, the state of the game industry, and the viability of smaller games in the current market. The environment for game developers is constantly …
I have things to say about Disco Elysium, which is easily my Game of the Year, but for context I first have to discuss my experience working on the Blade Runner game two decades ago. I had the great fortune to work on Blade Runner early in my career. It was my first lead role …
My first job in the game industry – a contract assistant design position – consisted of six months of heavy crunch on a project that was overdue and over budget. It ended in a no-notice layoff that eliminated not just my position, but the entire team, including veteran producers and engineers. Welcome to the game …
I’ve always loved open world games. The early Ultima RPGs were the first games I remember playing that gave me the thrill of feeling like I could go anywhere and do anything. Over the years, I’d feel the same way playing Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series, the original Elite, Grand Theft Auto, and many more fantastic …
Despite the title, this post is about game design, not politics. Specifically it’s about a topic I’ve spent a large portion of my career pondering: how to deliver meaningful, engaging narratives in games. For some genres the answer is clear. Linear adventure games and other experiences where narrative is the primary focus can lean on …