Radiator Blog

MARCH 16, 2023

I assumed it was mostly for fans but after watching all 32 episodes (on 2x speed, skipping some parts) I've changed my mind and now I think it's essential viewing for all game designers / devs. Outside of game design, there's a growing tide against "design thinking" style methods, see "Design thinking was supposed to fix the world.

Art 59

Art Concepts Dev Studios 59

Sirlin

AUGUST 23, 2015

These players will be seeing the game way ahead of everyone else, and they can join us in polishing up the last bits. All the artwork is finished and the game feels finished. So even though these are "prototype" copies, the cards would already be considered done by most companies. I'll post more about the game this week.

Balance 52

Balance Prototyping Fantasy Fighting 52

Brand Game Development

JULY 22, 2019

Perfect board game pacing is one of the most underrated aspects of board game design. Somewhere between overwhelm and ennui, there lies a middle ground where a game is perfectly paced. A great board game feels challenging and interesting throughout.

Tile 130

Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130

Keith Burgun

JANUARY 4, 2023

It’s good at moments like these – moments where you’re kind of at a loss, and wondering whether you’re maybe just a bad game designer or something – to just ask yourself, what am I trying to do here? I really appreciate the design work that’s happening in this space, and I want to be a part of it.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Game Design Game Designer Playtesting 52

Radiator Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2022

It's mostly "safe for work" even if the actual game is not. That Lonesome Valley is a short gay cowboy romance game about walking, sheepherding, and kissing. Back in 2019 I made an unfinished prototype for a Gay Western game jam to contemplate the anniversary of influential gay cowboy film Brokeback Mountain (2005).

Pixel 52

Pixel Film Art NPC 52

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

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the fourth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? How do you test game mechanics?

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Games Balance Development 130

Deconstructor of Fun

DECEMBER 13, 2022

Kevin J Bray (Game Engineer) , another professional with years of entrepreneurship experience (CEO at now defunct Byte Canvas; Executive Director at Tonk Tonk Games), who previously was a developer and lead engineer at League of Legends (about the same time as Maya). Not sure how they will prototype fast enough until they get some.

Studios 52

Studios Mobile Mobile Console 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 14, 2023

He stressed that games should hold true to the brand’s values, citing Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes as a perfect product-market fit. Diversify revenue model Cilingir urged game-makers with games skewed heavily toward either ad or IAP-based monetisation to balance their revenue mix.

Games 59

Games Cross platform Mobile Mobile 59

Designer Notes

AUGUST 10, 2021

Although I saw that Civ 5 ’s 1UPT had become the mainstream conception of a tile-based 4X game, Old World actually went through roughly a year of development WITH stacked units. Early on, the simplest way to prototype the game was to maintain a strict 1UPT rule (as stacking has the major downside of making the UI much more complicated).

Tile 40

Tile Point and Click AI Mechanics 40

Radiator Blog

JUNE 30, 2022

Zugzwang by Robert Yang This post details my process and intent for making my new release Zugzwang (pronounced in German like /ts'OOK-ts'VAHng/ ) a tactical sex dungeon roguelike cum ritual game. I first prototyped it back in 2019, but I didn't really know how to finish it. CONTENT WARNING 1: I mention a suicide from a century ago.

Code 52

Code Educational Education Prototyping 52

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 17, 2022

In an attempt to make content more scalable, PVE design borrowed a page from PVP and the team built new PVE modes as rule-sets that could be applied to any map by a game designer through simple tooling vs. baked in-experiences on custom maps. Lightspeed came in with a mobile rendition of a single player campaign mission.

Content 52

Content FPS Mobile Mobile 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 21, 2021

The only true bright spot was Art of War , which despite prototype level production quality has scaled up to over 5M in net revenue a month with no stop in sight! Over the years, Supercell’s portfolio has become slightly more balanced, with other games than the Clashes bringing in a more significant portion of the revenue.

Mobile 52

Mobile Mobile Cross platform Puzzle 52

Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

So this is this tough balance between being really super fast and building something really small and iterative and getting data soon and deciding what to do. They get to a prototype level. If it's a games company, but that does not mean that he needs to run all the game designers of every studio.

Games 52

Games Point and Click Engine Engineering 52