January 2010
19 posts
Lost Garden: Happy Holidays 2009! →
Some predictions for the online gaming community in 2010.
2010
Here are my goals for 2010:
Be more consistent with the good eating and healthier lifestyle. I’m not striving for perfection here, just improvement!
Keep up with the reading. I made it a goal in 2009 to read more and I’d like to continue that.
Write more. See Asterisk 52 tomorrow for the beginning of that.
See more of my new city. I’ve got plans to help enable this....
December 2009
34 posts
2009
Summary: 2009 wasn’t great, but it wasn’t all that bad either. It was certainly better than 2008 and seemed to get better as the year went on. It had its highs and lows and I want to reflect on them, well what I can pick out anyway, it was a year of big events so the smaller stuff is all kind of a blur…
(I wasn’t going to do this, as my impression of 2009 wasn’t a...
Analysis: The Evolution Of The Class System In... →
An interesting read about how the class system has evolved from Dungeons & Dragons, to online role-playing games to widespread use amongst many kinds of games.
Speaking of D&D, I learned quite a bit about game design from studying the rules and history of D&D. If you’re interested in game design, I suggest checking it out.
Social Game Developers Revamp Viral Tactics to... →
Pretty interesting to see how folks are dealing with the policy changes. There are some solid ideas here, as well as quite a few poorly made interaction design decisions. :)
The Making Of: MUD | Edge Online →
A bit of history about how MUD(s) became MMOs.
Target Audience: Me (Part 1/2) →
The essential point here is a good one; it’s about creating from a place of passion and that’s good advice no matter what you’re doing.
EA Launches Dante’s Inferno RPG with Lolapps to... →
Seems like a no-brainer. I expect to see lots of this in 2010.
The Art Of Game Polish: Developers Speak →
Polish are those little details, in gameplay, visuals, UI, etc. that can take a good game and make it great. This is something I wish more web and social game developers would pay attention.
Scott Jennings - PvP Fail: How PvP Can Break Your... →
Scott Jennings talks about some of the perils with PVP. We’ve noticed some balancing problems with Spymaster, and most of those are associated with the strong PVP bent of the game. Even for a “simple” game like Spymaster, balance issues can be a bear to correct.
He’s also spot on with is assessment of the kind of players you get when you have a PVP-focused game.
Pico Iyer on the tyranny of the moment --... →
Books do have a purpose.
Browser Pong →
Pretty much sucks as a game (lots of random paths and jumps) but pretty impressive regardless. Who knew you could do something like that?
“At their core, games have always been about social engagement. Always. It is...”
– Brenda Brathwaite, Blowing Everything Up: From AAA to Freedom « Applied Game Design
70-Minute Video Review of Star Wars: The Phantom... →
This is extremely entertaining and surprisingly educational. The Phantom Menace is one of the best examples I can think of when it comes to a story going bad.
The comparisons between it and the original Star Wars movies, which generally illustrate the right way to tell a story vs. how to completely mess things up, were spot on and a great reminder of what makes a great story; regardless of...
A Brave New Medium: Facebook versus World of... →
I found this fairly interesting, especially the bit contrasting the different UI. This is something I think about quite a bit as many of the games on the various social platforms aren’t designed all that well; both from an interface perspective and visually.
There is also a clear bent towards richer (more WoW-like) interfaces (and mechanics for that matter) in social gaming. ...
The Apple Store's Checkout Form Redesign
→
An interesting break down of Apple’s checkout forms both old and new. Lots of good advice and insight in here as well.
Tips for game designers →
Jordan Mechner (the creator of the Prince of Persia series) with some good advice for game designers.
Rands In Repose: Gaming the System →
Rands on games in the workplace. A fun read.
Achievement Design 101 →
Some good stuff from Greg McClanahan (Kongregate) here, will be referring back to this soon.
Thoughts on using competitive game mechanics to...
Earlier today I fired off a quick tweet, mostly to remind myself of a thought I had while out and about today.
Game mechs that promote direct competition (leaderboards) are tricky when (as the often are) used outside of a competitive game context.
What I’m talking about is using competitive game mechanics; such as reputation, Karma points and leaderboards and the like to encourage...
PetVille Ends Cross-Promotion of Zynga Poker – Is... →
Most of the interesting stuff is after the news bit. We had a discussion today about this very topic; theorizing that most players of casual/social games don’t want to wait, meaning any real-time PVP action would need to be pre-arranged (yeah right) or played against available strangers.
Anyway, interesting stuff.
Should Facebook Create a New Type of Relationship... →
At its core I think this is a very solid idea.
How Simple Game Mechanics Can Impassion People To... →
Interesting interview with Amy Jo Kim from Shufflebrain on the overlap between traditional web design/dev (specifically in web apps) and game mechanics.
(Among other things, like community, fundamental game mechanics, etc.)
I found this really, really interesting. Coming into game design from the web design/web app world it’s been pretty eye opening to see the relationships and how...
Presentation: Gaming the Web: Using the Structure... →
An interesting presentation from Dan Saffer about how Web Application designers can use game mechanics, processes and concepts to improve their applications.
GAMBIT: Read Me: Academic Papers →
A wealth of interesting papers on gaming and game design here.
Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! X →
List of game design no-nos.
russell davies: playful →
On Barley Games and pretending. Good stuff.
Thoughts on Assassin's Creed 2
(Quick note: I’m going to be posting notes and observations about the games I’ve been playing. These aren’t really reviews, they’re more of a way to capture some specific bits about what I think it fun, interesting, annoying, etc. about games.)
Last night I finished Assassin’s Creed 2 (played on my XBOX 360) and, for the most part, I really enjoyed it. The fact...
Tales of the Rampant Coyote: What Makes a Great... →
Lots of good stuff in this series. I especially liked the bit about mechanics.
“He’s specifically looking for independent game studios making games that have...”
– Playdom Co-Founder Investing in “Original IP” Social Gaming Startups
Really cool to see this as it’s exactly what we’re doing right now. Social gaming is hot, and rightfully so, but it’s also missing quality and originality in almost every aspect. That will change.
What Gamers Think About Microtransactions →
Some good insight here. It’s kind of common-sense (which we know isn’t at all common) and summed up at the end:
“The key lessons are 1) to balance the relationship between paying and non-paying players, 2) balancing the transaction conditions that are expected from a virtual good and a real-life good, for example rental terms for in-game items. Furthermore it is important to...
Booyah’s MyTown: Location-Based Gaming Meets... →
I thought Booyah Society was pretty cool. For about 10 minutes. MyTown looks like a much more interesting take on it, I’ll be checking it out for sure.