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Design Reboot: Torch
What to do with Alone In The Dark?Pictured: catwalk over electrified sludge, spider enemies, pipes.The original was of the very first survival horror games. It went through increasingly abstruse...
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Reboot Reboot: 1-800 HOW'S MY BLOGGING?
If you're reading this, I consider you an important part of the site, some element of it's now-forming nucelus of commenters/contributors.Articles have been posted over the past months but I consider...
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Level Design Primer: Keep It Wide
I credit this rule to a friend of mine, Drew Risch. Mr. Risch was a professional architect for some time before going on to do level design on such titles as Planetside, designing several of the base...
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Visual Clarity in Character Design (Part I)
With the release of Left 4 Dead 2 coming up, let's talk about visual clarity in character design. Valve has learned quite a bit about doing it right in recent years, so it's worth dissecting a few of...
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Visual Clarity in Character Design (Part II)
In Part II we'll consider the key characteristics discussed in the first entry--silhouette/scale, color/patterns, and materials/detailing, and see if we can't make an existing set of less than optimal...
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Design Reboot: Clive Barker's Jericho
Note: To clear up a common confusion to newcomers to the site: I did not work on Clive Barker's Jericho; this is the hypothetical/speculative work of an outsider to the game's production, as are most...
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Level Design Primer: Starting A New Level
When a modern FPS level takes weeks or months of production time it's probably a good idea to approach a new one with care. What follows is a summary of the six most important lessons I've learned so...
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Level Design Primer: Notes on Playtesting
Playtesting is like working out--you can go a long time telling yourself you don't need it, and then when you finally get around to doing it it will hurt so much you'll probably stop again for too...
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Open world issues Part 1: the Rockstar model
Many designers and players consider the open world design a kind of ultimate, one that trumps more traditional forms.I would argue that this simply isn't true; if only on the grounds that no one genre...
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Open world issues Part 2: the Bethesda model
Comments from yesterday's article prompted me to write a second update to discuss Bethesda's approach to open world games, since they're the other major player and take a markedly different approach...
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Open world issues Part 3: trust and the player-driven narrative
I confess that every previous attempt to write this third installment has been met with some manner of derailment. Anyone unfortunate enough to have contact with me in casual conversation or on message...
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A dog's life
(Mild spoilers follow. Like you even care, Dad.) All puns intended, Kane & Lynch 2 is for the dogs.Admire the poor creatures' appearances in the game itself: briefly and unremarkably, they show up...
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Design Reboot one-shot: Oni
Oni is a lesser-known title from Bungie, released in 2001. On a few points it was ahead of the curve: mixed third person melee and gun combat, tentative efforts at real-world architecture, and that...
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GAUSSWERKS / DESIGN REBOOT forums
Now open to the public. I would like to say that I have been tremendously fortunate to attract exactly the kind of thoughtful, intelligent commenters to this site that I was hoping to--so first, thank...
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Against Dilettantism
I've redrafted this about four times now, but J. Shea's combined forum and blog output (recommended reading) have shamed me into rewriting it fresh and just getting it out there. Blog posts that are up...
View ArticleDuty Calls: Kettle Ops
As a part of a campaign to promote the upcoming People Can Fly/Epic game Bulletstorm, we get the following elaborate send-up of Call of Duty games, Duty Calls. I thought it was funny. But who's really...
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Missing what might have been: a thought about meta-spoilers
An 8 year old sketch. A pretty decentGeoff Darrow bite if I say so myself.The neologism "meta-spoilers" is intended to get after that peculiar issue common to both game developers themselves and...
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Radiator Yang's Interview with yours truly
There have been mild suggestions that I update this blog. Such efforts have resumed.In the meantime, Please enjoy this interview piece by Robert Yang wherein we discuss a whole host of designerly...
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Design Primer: Askhat's minotaur
On Christmas Eve, 2006 I was in Akita, a sleepy town in northern Japan, and posting on the internet.I know this because yesterday a friend from polycount emailed to thank me for the advice I'd given...
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Dog name theory
When talking about independent game development, the question of names comes up a lot. Names for projects, names for companies, names for engine tech and so on. Since nobody asked me, here's how I feel...
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Legacy skills through the Looking Glass.
I didn't know what he looked like either.To a late 90's Looking Glass fan, the following quote from an interview about Dishonored would seem perfectly...
View ArticleOn works in progress
A friend was reticent to post about the game he was working on. This was my response, tapped out on my phone:never mind the dorks, post that shit. the longer you wait to post anything, the harder it...
View ArticleArkham Knight and the AAA Vignette Problem
What I am calling the vignette problem is when so much skill and attention is paid to portray or evoke an uncommon scenario, it overshadows the actual experience of the game.Watch from 1:40 in this...
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You're Getting VR Wrong (And Not The Way You Think You Are)
The central imagery for VR is people wearing the headset. They're In There, they're experiencing new worlds, you the viewer are left pining for whatever special experience they're having, or trying to...
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The Trouble With Deckard's Blaster
I wanted to briefly illustrate a point that has been on my mind a lot recently. If you wish to carry on any kind of legacy or intellectual property, you will do your best work by retracing the...
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