Keith Burgun

APRIL 10, 2023

As I’ve gone through the Final Fantasy series recently , it’s notable that the games used to have secrets, and now, they pretty much don’t anymore. Somewhere in the late 90s, and certainly by the mid 2000s, it was decided that secrets are bad and games shouldn’t have them. They are findable.

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Radiator Blog

JUNE 2, 2023

In this sense, playing a 75% finished game is more useful than playing a 100% finished game. So this post will focus on my read of the general game design and player experience. The player never quite experiences these ideas in the game itself. Similarly, you can see where the core game design wanted to hit.

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Studios Co-op Open World Cutscenes 98

Keith Burgun

JULY 29, 2022

So what we end up with, over time, is a “tradition”, or traditions within a blanket term like “RPG” There are so-called “ARPGs” like Diablo, JRPGs like Final Fantasy, CRPGs like Ultima, tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem, and so on. Over the years, I have loved games in all of these categories.

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Radiator Blog

APRIL 1, 2022

Within broader game design culture, the theme also invokes an awkward aspect of cultural appropriation and reduction. On the other hand, why shouldn't our fantasy settings involve Mesoamerican and Andean influences? The textures are fine! It echoes colonizer arguments about "savages" who "need" to be conquered.

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Rampant Games

NOVEMBER 7, 2022

Thanks to a crazy head engineer with a god complex, ten thousand players are now playing an ultra-realistic fantasy game in a virtual world with real-world stakes. So author Reki Kawahara drew on his familiarity with the games of the day and their systems to create what he thought would be a super-cool virtual reality game.

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Art Games Fighting Technology 52

Keith Burgun

JANUARY 27, 2023

I would have played it sooner, but I was on this huge Final Fantasy kick (which is still ongoing, to be honest). This might have some very light spoilers, but… honestly, one of my main criticisms is that there isn’t much to spoil in this game, at least not in the 27 or so hours that I played. Wish me luck.

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Writing Fantasy Fighting Cutscenes 52

Raph Koster

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

So simulationism was born as a way to make fantasy worlds richer, more immersive… in a sense, to “make the ride better.” It’s stuff that single-player game designers know how to do. Breadcrumbs, dialogue trees, cutscenes, progression paths. So is FFXIV. But Eve is basically simulationist.

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