The first Kingdom Come: Deliverance was a game I enjoyed and respected, but didn’t finish. A 2018 release by Warhorse Studios, the title launched in a buggy state, with gameplay that straddled an uncomfortable line between realistic and tedious. Performance on my machine at the time was rough, and I encountered several outright broken sequences […]
Life Worth Living: The Pleasures of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Read More »
I was chatting with my dad last week, who’s been known to play a few games over the years. He and I have sparred on and off for years over the chessboard. He played a few of the titles I’ve worked on, and at one point went on a serious Civilization bender. So for a
Apocalypse Now-ish: The Messy, Chaotic Design of Fallen Land Read More »
The insightful game industry critic Tom Chick once started a forum discussion about which board games he most liked. He framed the conversation a great way – which games in your collection would you take to a desert island to entertain yourself for the long haul? I love that way of thinking about games and
2025 Begins: Board Games for the Coming Apocalypse Read More »
It’s become a game industry in-joke, but Bethesda games, from the Elder Scrolls series to Starfield, have always heavily leveraged what’s come to be known as environmental storytelling. The classic example is the hordes of skeletons you find in the wasteland in the Fallout games – propped in various poses suggesting the manner of their
In the Zone: Great Environmental Storytelling in STALKER 2 Read More »
The holiday season is upon us, with December 19 marking the start of the annual Steam Winter Sale. It’s nearly impossible to experience a “gamer slump” this time of year – too many great titles flood our discovery queues. So this week seems like a good time for a quick rundown of the games I’ve
Holiday Gaming: What’s Being Played at My House Read More »
When I start rambling about weird niche board games, my industry friends politely smile and nod. But I can tell when they’ve started looking for the quickest possible exit to the conversation. “That sounds cool,” they might say, “but not relevant to what WE do.” There’s no way to get them to tune out more
Climb and Dive: Clever Mechanics in a Niche Boardgame Read More »
How to build great narrative content in games is a topic that’s always at the forefront of my mind. Crafting game narratives has been one focus of my career, and I’ve been around long enough to see several trends in narrative design come and go. The industry has undoubtedly improved at delivering stories over the
Battle Lessons: The Superior Narrative Stew of Zephon Read More »
Two hours into Dragon Age: The Veilguard I started to get worried. The introduction to the game had been crisp, an action-packed sequence reintroducing Varric, a much-loved dwarven companion from the previous games, and Solas, the antagonist from the twist ending to Dragon Age: Inquisition. The action combat felt immediately good and impactful; the environment
Comfort Food: Dragon Age Veilguard First Impressions Read More »
I remember when I first played SimCity. Will Wright’s masterwork was a breath of fresh air – a playable simulation of real-world urban planning, a topic that sounded like a terrible idea for a game on paper but was incredibly compelling in reality. Like Civilization and other 4X games, SimCity and its descendants weave an
Ant Farms: Three of the Quirkiest City-Builders Around Read More »
Useless biographical tidbit: I have a law degree. I don’t talk about it much, I don’t use it for anything, and I never passed the bar exam so I’m not an attorney. It was a waste of thousands of dollars, though I did pick up a few techniques on how to really annoy people in
Past Lessons: Innovations and Flaws in Ara: History Untold Read More »