Articles on game design in general.
What is the purpose of a sequel? From a corporate perspective it’s a means of establishing a brand, a franchise, and increasing revenue through recognition. As a fictional work it’s to expand the universe, grow the narrative and revisit familiar characters. What is the purpose from a game perspective? Chess might have evolved over centuries but […]
As I posited previously games are a form of communication. The ways in which the player is able to express their intent to the game is only half the equation. Players perform actions in the world, using sentences formed from nouns, verbs and adverb-verb pairs, and the game responds by modifying the nouns (objects) and their […]
Some games are simply frustrating. They are not necessarily difficult games, they just feature some section or encounter that is out of balance with everything surrounding it. I’ve been playing through God Of War and reached such a section. It’s an environmental puzzle which requires me to maintain my balance while walking along a series of beams […]
Playing a game is a form of communication. Players express their intent and the game provides feedback on the state of the simulated world, quantifying and contextualising player actions. All forms of communication require the establishment of a common ground, this is done in games by providing both the game and player with a selection of nouns […]
It’s not uncommon for me to have several games at various states of completion at any time. Sometimes my progress in one title will suffer because I’m more engaged with another; sometimes real life gets in the way. In extreme cases it can take several months, before I have the time and inclination, to return to a game. I strive […]
What does it mean to kill a virtual character? In a strictly mechanical sense killing a character is a means of removing their ability to interact with other objects in the game world, it’s a state change from active to inactive. Playing through Deus Ex, with the Vintage Game Club, I’ve found that frequently myself and others […]
For a choice to be meaningful, for the making of it to be worth consideration at all, requires that it be an informed one. We need to have an idea of the consequences of any choice, there needs to be a discernible difference between taking one action over another. An uninformed choice isn’t really a choice at all. When random […]
Aristotle understood the power of suspense, of tension. The unknown is vital for both good drama and good games. Without some degree of uncertainty regarding events there is little tension, little drama. Though often the overall outcome is not where this uncertainty lies. In a single-player games we know that if we keep playing for long enough we will […]
I don’t play Grand Theft Auto IV anymore. I have neither reached the conclusion of Niko Bellic’s story, nor achieved anything approaching one hundred percent completion. I have ceased playing because I’ve found that for all this sand-box nature it is inherently devoid of freedom. I can murder a dozen people or more in the space […]
“Where were we after forty years of evolution? What swamp were we swimming around in, single celled and mindless? What if SHODAN’s creations are superior to us? What will they become in a million years, in ten million years? What’s clear is that SHODAN shouldn’t be allowed to play God. She’s far too good at […]