Tom Francis

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

This post is part of a series. I mention abilities and tools but no story spoilers. A lot of the time, MGS V is just a very good stealth game. You have lots of tools to distract, evade or take down your enemies, and they’re all very satisfying to use – just like Deus Ex 3. Its levels are encampments dotted seamlessly around a huge open world – just like Far Cries 2-4.

Agent 52

Agent Cinematics Open World Fantasy 52

Sirlin

SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Pandante 2nd Edition and a new printing of Flash Duel are now generally available. P andante 2nd Edition The new Flash Duel These games were part of my fourth Kickstarter and the rewards have now all been delivered to backers—a MONTH ahead of schedule. Four out of four kickstarters on time! Anyway, you can now get your hands on these games if you missed the kickstarter.

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Editing Mechanics Content Balance 52

Grumpy Gamer

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

I guess Monkey Island turns 25 this month. It's hard to tell. Unlike today, you didn't push a button and unleash your game to billions of people. It was a slow process of sending "gold master" floppies off to manufacturing, which was often overseas, then waiting for them to be shipped to stores and the first of the teaming masses to buy the game. Of course, when that happened, you rarely heard about it.

Bug 52

Bug Point and Click Build Entertainment 52

Game Design Advice

SEPTEMBER 14, 2015

Lana Polansky recently wrote a very interesting piece about how we categorize games which includes an examination of the popular MDA game design framework. MDA stands for “Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics”, it’s the organizing principle of Marc LeBlanc’s GDC game design workshop which I’ve been a part of for many years and was written up in 2004 as a white paper by Robin Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek.

Mechanics 40

Mechanics Game Design Game Designer Graphics 40

Mircosoft Game Dev

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Do you love FLOSS Manuals? Do you love France in the summer? Come help us do a Booksprint for Godot Engine next week! As you may know Ariel is spending some time in Hamburg, and since he's so close to France, the people from Floss Manuals FR invited him to do a Booksprint with them for Godot Engine! If you'd like to help, come down to Rennes, France next weekend to hang out!

Writing 40

Writing Editing Engine Engineering 40

Tom Francis

SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

In maths, ‘natural numbers’ are the ones you might use to count observable, whole things: eg. there are six people here. Anything that doesn’t work in place of ‘six’ there, like 3.4 or -2, is not natural. They’re kind of ‘numbers you can see’ I’d like to use the term in game design to mean specifically that: numbers you can see.

Game Design 52

Game Design Game Designer Games Concepts 52

Tom Francis

SEPTEMBER 17, 2015

I definitely waste more of my time than I’d like. Mostly on Twitter, but also just with this mysterious business of general internetting. I’ll sometimes catch myself switching between 7 open browser tabs, each containing something I want or need to do, and doing none of it. And none of the productivity plug-ins or apps I’ve found do quite what I want, because my requirements are incredibly specific.

Point and Click 52

Point and Click Internet PC Studios 52

Sirlin

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

It’s generally good in a competitive game when there’s a lot of interaction. In other words, if your opponent is up to something, it’s good if you can do something about that. In Codex, your vulnerabilities are on the table and you have to defend them. If you want to cast any spells, you need a hero in play to cast them—and your heroes can be attacked.

Build 52

Build Mechanics Games Development 52

Sirlin

SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

We discuss "easy special moves" in fighting games. We can pretty quickly say why they are a good or bad idea, but the bigger issue is trying to clarify what the term means to help others avoid muddled discussions on this topic. What is a game with "easy special moves" actually trying to do? Moves being easy—in and of itself—tells you nothing about whether the techniques and combos in a game are easy to do or not.

Game Design 40

Game Design Game Designer Fantasy Fighting 40

Sirlin

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

This is the 3rd in a series of design articles about Codex. In case you missed the first two: #1 Codex Design: Cards and Gold As Resources #2 Codex Design: Heroes and Tech Buildings. Codex is asynchronous. That means someday you’ll be able to play the online version without your opponent having to be online at the same time as you. You can get through your entire turn without having to wait for your opponent, then they can take their turn without you having to be there either.

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Build Mechanics Feature Fighting 52