Game talk

This is the catch-all category for stuff about games and game design. It easily makes up the vast majority of the site’s content. If you are looking for something specific, I highly recommend looking into the tags used on the site instead. They can narrow down the hunt immensely.

More on making games cheaply

 Posted by (Visited 12534 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Jan 062012
 

I only offered 6 points, but 3 of them are ones that people are wanting to argue about! 🙂 I suppose that is a pretty good hit rate…

A few folks took exception to my comment that “code doesn’t rot, our ability to read it does.”

The first objection is that most code is born rotten, that it is rare to find code written to the standards that allow it to be easily maintained. I can’t really argue with that, though of course there are plenty of practices that ameliorate this: code reviews, code standards, etc. I’d answer with “that’s just code where our ability to read it perished as it was being typed.”

The second objection is basically that platforms shift out from under code. This is absolutely true — but is also a sign that you’re not actively maintaining your codebase. Times of truly catastrophic platform shifts where everything you did is invalidated should be relatively rare these days, honestly.

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My biggest coding takeaway

 Posted by (Visited 11614 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Jan 052012
 

Rigid programming philosophies are the devil.

Look, I am upfront about the fact that I am not an amazing programmer. I am not even a really competent one. I hack. I didn’t go through a CS degree, I don’t actually know a lot of the lingo, etc.

On the other hand, I have in fact been credited as a programmer on published games. I have programmed in quite a lot of languages, I prototype my own stuff regularly, and my name is on several technical patents. I seem to have a knack for seeing architectural solutions to problems, and for inventing technical solutions. (I generally prefer to partner with a genius coder for the actual implementation thereof — and have been lucky enough to work with many of them!).

So take everything I am about to say with the appropriate grain of salt.

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Making games more cheaply

 Posted by (Visited 46416 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Jan 042012
 

There are basically two big things that drive a lack of innovation in games.

The first of them is risk minimization. The second of them is risk minimization.

The reason I say “two” is because some forms of mitigating risk are undertaken with intentionality: purposely making a game that is a clone, for example. This isn’t always a bad thing — sure, sometimes it is done in order to capitalize on a market trend, but other times it’s done to learn how a given genre works, and in that scenario it’s a common and vital tool in a designer’s toolbox.

But this post is about the second sort of risk mitigation, which primarily centers around the fact that as games get more ornate, they get more expensive to make. High upfront costs push you naturally and inevitably towards incremental changes, with the biggest risks being taken on content rather than game systems. This is a pattern that leads inevitably towards “genre kings” — and the stage after genre kings tends to be stagnation and loss of audience reach.

So how can we as an industry keep costs down? Well, here’s my take, somewhat more elaborated from my now long-ago presentation on “Moore’s Wall.”

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Good design, Bad design, Great design

 Posted by (Visited 34614 times)  Game talk  Tagged with:
Dec 162011
 

Good design is familiar.
Bad design is boring.
Great design is exciting.

Good design embraces human nature.
Bad design exploits human nature.
Great design is humane and humanistic.

Good design guides.
Bad design controls.
Great design invites.

Good design drives habit.
Bad design drives frustration.
Great design drives passion.
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Rules versus mechanics

 Posted by (Visited 38373 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
Dec 132011
 

Ian Schreiber posted on Twitter asking

Game designers: in your everyday use of the terms, is there a difference between “rules” and “mechanics”? If so, what?

I do make the distinction, and I had to think a bit about how to even phrase it. So here’s a quick thousand+ words on it. 🙂

First off, I think these are both terms that will feel different to a player vs a designer.

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