95% of the time, this blog is about games, game development, and game design. I had the usual sort of article half-written yesterday – a design dissection of why CD Projekt RED’s masterful games, The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk, are so great on a second and third playthrough despite replayability not being a primary game …
The Calm Before the Storm: Hurricanes and Elections Collide Read More »
It’s Photo Album Week here on the blog. I mentioned in passing a few weeks ago that one of the small but nice things about working in games was all the free swag that flows your way. Developer t-shirts are a mainstay, but over the years I’ve collected a veritable mountain of cups, clothing, and …
Swag Collection: Physical Memories from a Game Career Read More »
In between consulting work, I’m plugging away on a solo project. While I’m not ready to talk about the details of the game itself, the process to date has been educational. Regardless of when I finally deliver it, I’m happy with the approach I’ve taken. The last time I worked on a solo project, just …
First Steps: Lessons from Indie Game Prototyping 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 …
There’s an analogy I like for game development that I’m fond of stretching beyond plausibility to make a point. I first used my favorite metaphor years ago when I started blogging, and I’ve been itching to expand on my original premise ever since. For as many years as I’ve been in the game industry, I’ve …
Climbing High: A Tortured Metaphor for Game Development Read More »
My stepfather is one of the smartest people I know – an engineer and a mathematician, a polyglot descendent of a Scottish poet, and a whiz with computers long before they were in every household. I’ve written before about how he first introduced me to games; to no small extent, I owe my career to …
Barriers Tumbling: AI and the Future of Game Development Read More »
So. How’s your last three years been? When I accepted a full-time role at BonusXP in April 2020, I’d just returned from a family trip to Florida, including a somewhat ill-advised trip to Disney World the week before all the theme parks shut down for COVID. I had no idea what was about to unfold …
In these confusing, complex, and scary past few weeks, I’ve been constantly reminded of just how fortunate game developers are. We’re comfortable working remotely and operating, if not at 100% efficiency, something like 70-80%. We can hold online design meetings, write code, and make art. We can move our work forward – and with digital …
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 …
September 2019 How do you start a game company? That’s the question that plagued me last October when I was getting ready to spin up Scree Games. I’m detail-oriented and a little anxious by nature. My default tendency – one which I fight all the time, and a bad tendency for a budding entrepreneur – …