My Job Brings Awkwardness to the Thanksgiving Table

Narrative Systems

Looking to Music for Inspiration
I tend to talk about two things a lot on this blog: music and games. As much as I consider myself a game designer, the only thing I have been for longer is a musician. Sure I made my first board game when I was 4, but I was banging on things to make rhythm when I just a toddler. I’ve gone from recorder to piano, to trumpet, to bass guitar in my lifetime, and recently some six

For Those About to Rock
So I finally got around to ordering a copy of Rock Band via the RockBand79.com deal, which comes with Rock Band, RB2, and RB1 era equipment (but boo hoo, right?). Then after reading this article on Gamasutra, I finally understood why they could do this. EA, MTV, and Harmonix are making so much bank on this franchise that they can pretty much give it away at this point. The major comment at the bottom,

Due to the Age of this Title
So here I am, about to shell out $5 for a game I bought 14 years ago in the hopes the code would have been updated to run properly inside DosBOX. I had tried reinstalling Dark Forces last winter to much frustration. I could never get the whole thing to run correctly inside DosBOX. The sound would cut in and out, the whole thing would crash, etc. depending on what settings I had on. The only way it would run was without sound. So basically I said “forget it” since the game’s

Final Boss Battles
In days of yore, boss battles boiled down to one major pattern: hit it in its weak spot, usually the head. This could also be varied up with hitting it with its weakness (like Mega Man master robots) or just straight up hitting it until it dies. As awesome as Shadow of the Colossus was, once you managed to climb up the boss it all boiled down to this one simple pattern. The question has been posed on

A Game Designer’s Review of 5W!TS “Tomb” in Boston
I made this post back on my old NightRise Development Blog, and enjoyed it so much that I thought I’d bring it back since it very much has to do with game design and what to AVOID in game design. So if you didn’t read it back at the old blog, now’s your chance. Enjoy! I think the people who run 5W!TS have met their mortal enemy: someone who can identify every game cliche in the book. And