Game Design – Page 2 – "On Game Design"

I’m speaking at GDC!

By Dodger February 6, 2012 February 6, 2012 Bloggage, Game Design

Wow! I just found out my talk was accepted! YAY.

If any of you will be at GDC, swing on by and check it out. It’s going to be on Wednesday from 2pm-3pm

Here’s the details:

Session Title: Reaching Into the Toy-Chest: A Look into Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure’s Design

Session Description: Making games is hard. Making a game with more than 32 playable characters is very difficult. Now integrate a huge line of collectable toys and you … Continue reading

Writing about Game Design is hard

By Dodger January 16, 2012 January 16, 2012 Bloggage, Game Design

I feel like I have a lot to say about the subject, but that writing it down isn’t the best way to get that across.

Writing about some esoteric point or another requires laying a ton of groundwork just to even have a chance of getting to the point.

It’s exhausting.

I know Vincent Baker at least likes to make little games to get his points across. Maybe I should do the same.

That being said, anyone know any good examples of game designers (or other game makers) with blogs that are GOOD at writing down their thoughts on … Continue reading

A Meier Modification

By Dodger November 28, 2011 November 28, 2011 Bloggage, Game Design

One of my favorite game design quotes has always been Sid Meier’s “Games are a series of interesting choices.”

I was thinking a lot about it last night, and I think if I were saying it now I’d make a slight modification that, I think, might make Mr. Meier’s meaning a bit clearer to the novice designer.

Players make interesting choices. Games ask interesting questions.

It sounds really minor, but hear me out.

In my experience, trying to design choices into a game doesn’t usually produce good results. Most of the time, interesting choices come OUT of your game … Continue reading

Project Cake: Weapon Selection

By Dodger November 1, 2011 November 1, 2011 Bloggage, Game Design, Interactive

Hi Guys,

Here’s another update for Project Cake. It’s a small one, this time.

When you’re in a combat zone, there is now a UI that lets you choose between multiple attack abilities. You can press 1 to use fireballs, and 2 to use an ice attack. You can also change weapons with the scroll wheel on your mouse.

The two attacks aren’t really balanced or tuned yet, but it gives the idea of how the functionality of it should work.

If you’d like to check out the build, please click here.

Project Cake Update

By Dodger October 29, 2011 October 31, 2011 Bloggage, Game Design, Interactive

Hi Everyone,

Just an update on cake. I added some new tilesets, so I could set the areas up right for when I get real art. I’ve also added in the rest of the tank enemies from Project Bacon. I’ve also made a few other improvements (MUSIC!) and streamlined some stuff behind the scenes.

I put notes in the build about the stuff that’s changed.

Also, I thought you guys might want to see a shot of the editor:

Project Cake

By Dodger October 26, 2011 October 26, 2011 Game Design, Interactive

I did pretty much all I wanted to do with Project Bacon (my little Tank-based combat prototype), so now I’m moving onto the next step.

PROJECT CAKE!

This is a test of more traditional methods of game design (manual placement and setup design principles). I’ve rewritten the engine I’m using to support using manually-created content instead of just random content.

All of these levels are currently set up using Tiled, an open source Tile Editor program. From Tiled I can set up art, gameplay, collision, and much more — it works as a full fledged editor for me.

The … Continue reading

Really cool youtube “Lets Play” of Skylanders

By Dodger October 18, 2011 October 19, 2011 Bloggage, Game Design

Youtube user tealgamemaster has put up a really cool full playthrough of Skylanders. If you’re not worried about spoilers, certainly check it out.

My favorite thing is how he starts off and it seems like he is prepared to hate the game. His impression slowly grows more and more positive as he plays until he gets to the end and he LOVES it. BEST game EVAR! I spent the weekend watching all 12-14 hours of the series and it really made me feel great. I’m glad he liked it so much.

He even made up a song about it: