Game design was a less specialized vocation when I first entered the industry. Teams were smaller and most designers wore all the hats – systems, content, and narrative. Still, my previous experience as a writer and editor meant I often got tapped for narrative work. My first contract job was creating single-player campaign story content …
Hand in Hand: Building Better Narratives for Games Read More »
In 1997, as the Blade Runner game at Westwood was winding down and getting ready to ship, the core team was tired. The project had been a long haul, with many ups and downs. We were proud of the final product, but none of us relished the idea of starting on a sequel – and …
Nautical by Nature: Breaking the Curse of the Pirate Game Read More »
Just before sixth grade, I moved from rural New Hampshire to the planned suburbs of Columbia, Maryland. The environments could not have been more different. It took a while to make new friends, but within a year or so, I started to settle in and find “my people.” It was in those formative middle-school years …
Thin Red Lines: The Problematic and Evocative War Game Read More »
I am really bad at Hunt: Showdown. Crouched on the top floor of the rusted-out stairwell in the ruins of the old prison – a place that always feels like a trap – I feel like have all the approaches covered. I’d placed a concertina trap at the bottom of the stairs, a nasty trip …
Bullets in the Bayou: Design Lessons in Hunt: Showdown Read More »
A freelance consultant’s days are busy but unpredictable. For any given week, I might have work for multiple clients, or I might be tinkering with my own game, or I might be seeking out new contracts for a future quarter. Most likely it’s a mix of all three. Consulting doesn’t have anywhere near the security …
The story has to start with The Wheel. I am not a gamer who buys a lot of hardware and peripherals. I eventually get around to getting a console or two every generation, but I’m never first in line and I wait for the price cuts. I’m primarily a PC gamer, but I’ll go five …
East Bound and Down: A Love Letter to Euro Truck Simulator 2 Read More »
I had a tight group of friends in high school and college who were all, to one degree or another, gamers like me. We had a few places where we hung out, including the local shopping mall (it was the eighties, after all) and the basement of one friend’s house, where we spent hours playing …
My fourteen-year-old son likes games. I guess it’d be hard for him not to; most of the time, if his old man isn’t working on games, he’s playing them. He grew up in a house filled with toys – Lego, board games, Warhammer miniatures, and D&D books. He’s seen both his dad and his mom …
What’s Old is New: Games and the Nostalgia Factor Read More »
After my parents divorced, I spent summers and holidays with my dad and stepmom for several years. Since my dad lived in an Atlanta suburb and I lived with my mom in the northeast, I became an early frequent flier. Air travel was different in those long-before-9/11 days. I’d travel alone on a two-hour flight, …
I flew from California for my first visit to Dallas late on a sunny afternoon in early September. I had left my job a couple of months earlier, quitting a toxic work situation without an immediate backup plan for the first time in my career. I’d been in California for a couple of years, and …
Dallas Developer: Twenty Years of Making Games in North Texas Read More »