Category Archives: Design / Production

Chris Avellone was telling me about a panel on writing that he attended at Comic-con which devolved into an interesting conversation about circumventing writer’s block. That’s a challenge I struggle with all the time, so I asked him for his notes on the panel, and he was kind enough to share them with me. And now I’m sharing them with you. And you can share them with someone else, if you like. Ain’t sharing grand? PS. Many of these tactics seem as applicable to game design as they do to writing.

• Go buy three magazines (games) you don’t normally read (play), then flip through them and free associate.
• Grab a Gideon Bible, open it randomly and then see what it sparks.
• Have three creative projects going at once so you can switch off when you get stuck with one. (For games, they shouldn’t have to be large in scope; how about having a pet flash, XNA, or mod project on the side?)
• Do something else creative that doesn’t involve writing – doodling, sketching, painting, whatever.
• Go workout for 30-40 min with no music and no TV, and then let the endorphins do their work.
• One guy said that “writer’s block happens because you’re writing something you’re not excited about or interested in,” and he suggests that when that happens, take a step back, ask why, then charge into it in a different direction that does excite you.
• Keep a collection of works that excite you. When you hit a block, go back to this library, re-read them, and remember why they excited you.

Continue reading →

As a general rule, I choose not to write about individual XBLA games on this blog. But this was a special week for XBLA, and I’d like to acknowledge the primary reason for that:

Last Wednesday, we launched Jonathan Blow’s Braid. As many other commentators have already noted, Braid is now the highest-rated game on XBLA. Its review score puts it in the company of Mass Effect. Rock Band, and Halo 3. It is being compared to Portal, but Portal had a much larger development budget. IMO, Braid is in a class all its own.

That said, I’m not writing this to promote Braid (it doesn’t need the help at this point.) I wanted to share some thoughts on the game itself, and on lessons that we can potentially learn from it.

Continue reading →

Gamasutra has posted an article sharing ten lessons for designing games that appeal to “older gamers” — which they also call “silver gamers.” Most of the lessons seem obvious, but it’s worth being reminded of them.

I would have liked it if some of the lessons were expanded upon. For example, lesson #1 emphasizes the importance of repeatable tutorials, but tutorials are simply one means of addressing a larger issue: that of teaching people what they can do in a game, and then helping them to remember those lessons later on. (Lesson #2 was “better printed manuals, reiterating the importance of this issue.) Given the tremendous length of some games, and the fact that busy adults may spread that gameplay over weeks or even months, it’s easy to forget the lessons taught in a tutorial.

This problem is exaggerated in games, such as Assassin’s Creed or MGS4, that pack large amounts of functionality into disparate objects and/or context-sensitive situations. (Though MGS4 does some things nicely, like automatically displaying all the ways to use an item when you select that item from the menu.) The request for meatier printed manuals, like repeatable tutorials, is ultimately a symptom of this larger problem.

Continue reading →

There are two design issues that I have been thinking about lately. One is the question of consequences, which smart guys like Clint Hocking and Randy Smith have lectured and written about. Are we robbing games of meaning (and/or eliminating the sense of wonder they can create) by reducing player choice, amping up positive feedback, and increasing the degree to which we hold the player’s hand? The second is the question of difficulty — how challenging should a game be, and is it “pandering” or “betraying the spirit of the game” to do things like offer a very easy play mode, design more forgiving checkpoints, add a hint system, etc? (Accessibility and difficulty issues are, in fact, a recurring theme on this blog.)

Continue reading →