The Bottom Feeder

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

In my last post about Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Z:TotK for short), a very popular game, I suggested that people would be interested in thoughtful criticism of slightly older games, once the dust has settled and people had the chance to calmly reflect about them. Most people don't actually care about deep dives into game design.

Cutscenes 92

Cutscenes Terrain Games Puzzle 92

CG Spectrum

JUNE 10, 2024

3D Modelling 3D Animation FX Concept Art 2D Animation Game Design Game Programming 3D Modelling: Shaping Virtual Worlds “3D modelling is a rewarding career where you get to bring concepts and 2D imagery to life, sculpting personality and story into characters, objects, and environments. What does a game designer do?

Film 52

Film Animation Animation Concepts 52

AWS Games

DECEMBER 1, 2022

The responses represent a diverse set of developers – they work for small studios with less than 20 people (58%), medium studios of up to 150 people (26%), and large studios of over 150 people (16%) that develop games across 22 genres including action (33%), role playing (30%), and puzzle (22%). AWS for Games Solutions.

Game Developer 52

Game Developer Game Development Development Data 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

AUGUST 9, 2016

This should greatly help us reach potential users who might have been initially puzzled by having to learn GDScript (though we still guarantee that any programmer can pick up GDScript in less than an hour). Allow programmers to set up their scenes, AI, etc. This way, they can do tweaks without bothering programmers.

Visual Scripting 52

Visual Scripting Scripting Code Puzzle 52

Game Daily

JUNE 8, 2023

Jordan Weisman: Sure, Our goal with Adventure Forge is to empower people to make games that tell the stories they’ve always wanted to tell. GameDaily: How far are you using AI in Adventure Forge? Jordan Weisman: We think games are made by humans and for humans. We’re not racing towards AIs telling stories.

Prop 52

Prop AI Platformer Racing 52

Interesting Choices

AUGUST 17, 2011

People are starting to warm up to it, though, and recent years have seen a surge of cooperative board games, as well as digital games like Starcraft 2 and League of Legends that are embracing co-op vs AI as a valid way to experience the game.

Communications 52

Communications Co-op Mechanics Playtesting 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 14, 2023

Running through the market by genre, Kress noted that King has done quite well, but other genres had suffered badly, with strategy, RPG, match puzzle, and casino games all down double digits. Fun generates retention, he said, stating that game designers should think of their games as becoming a daily player habit.

Games 59

Games Cross platform Mobile Mobile 59

Raph Koster

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

The scripting on WoC made for better combat too, because you weren’t stuck with just the built-in combat AI for your enemies. AI had more sophisticated combat tactics, because designers could add fresh behaviors to the monsters. This, in fact, was what my signature design style was. A bit of ACTS scripting from LegendMUD.

Sandbox 59

Sandbox Simulation Content Scripting 59

Game Design Advice

JUNE 5, 2016

Deep games require knowledge, explanation, creativity, and cleverness. Such a model could also inform our discussions about game design, suggesting directions for design exploration and expanding our palette of analytical tools and techniques. Modeling depth may help us better understand how to think about these things.

Feature 40

Feature Terrain Games Baking 40

Grumpy Gamer

JANUARY 18, 2018

I had worked at Lucasfilm for 8 years and learned a lot, not just about game design and programming, but also marketing, PR, and production and I felt like I needed to try it all for myself. I also had the idea of making adventure games for kids. I floated it by Lucasfilm Games and they weren't interested.

Puzzle 130

Puzzle Point and Click Playtesting Art 130

Grumpy Gamer

JANUARY 17, 2018

I had worked at Lucasfilm for 8 years and learned a lot, not just about game design and programming, but also marketing, PR, and production and I felt like I needed to try it all for myself. I also had the idea of making adventure games for kids. I floated it by Lucasfilm Games and they weren’t interested.

Puzzle 130

Puzzle Point and Click Playtesting Art 130

PreMortem.Games

JANUARY 19, 2024

“Ben had been exploring similar ideas in his own work, but from a more technical angle, and with an emphasis on conversational AI. And so, we quickly realised the potential to form a bit of a ‘Super Group’ by bringing Game Design and AI Tech together. AI-enabled dialogue Dead Meat uses AI generated dialogue.

AI 129

AI First person Puzzle Scripting 129

Radiator Blog

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

This is similar to my tactics games writeup and Enderal (huge Skyrim mod) writeup where I spoil some interesting game designer / systems design things. I don't discuss much of the game narrative. I assume general game design knowledge but minimal Deathloop-specific knowledge.

Fighting 130

Fighting NPC Puzzle AI 130

Designer Notes

MARCH 31, 2023

Welcome to My Elephant in the Room: An Old World Design Postmortem. Here are the games that I’ve worked on. Spoiler alert: Civilization 3 and 4 are going to come up a lot in the presentation… I also do a podcast where I interview game designers about why they make games, so check it out if you have time for 4-hour interviews.

Tile 98

Tile Point and Click AI Mechanics 98

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 24, 2023

A cold calculating trader would only care about the outcome, but human beings seem to love watching the outcome unfold - a puzzling topic for economists. Sports betting is probably the best example, where the outcome of a wager is a live sporting competition; the bettor’s stake makes them all the more invested to watch the game.

Games 52

Games Point and Click Asset Balance 52

Radiator Blog

JUNE 30, 2022

A broughlike is a variation on a roguelike named after designer Michael Brough , who has spoken before on his design patterns like square tiles, orthogonal movement, turn parity, glitching, limited info, simple maze designs, minimal resources. A dense randomized mini-chess puzzle where everything matters.

Code 100

Code Educational Education Prototyping 100