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The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

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Niche

January 25, 2009 /

There’s been a lot of talk about Tabula Rasa lately, including its oncoming demise.  TR’s launch and subsequent failure would be an afterthought, if Richard wasn’t involved – hell, MOST game projects fail or are cancelled, and to the team’s credit, TR actually did get out the door — more than the vast majority of games in this industry. Still, the history is there, and worth discussing.

The two most interesting posts on the subject should be required reading: Scott’s view from another project in the same building, andAdam’s view from across the pond. Both are required reading, as is Eric’s take here. Continue reading

Corpse Run

January 25, 2009 /

I get a lot of mail from people asking me to pimp this thing, that thing and the other, most of which I ignore – I post as little as it is nowadays without what things I do post being blatant PR manipulation bullshit.

That being said, Corpse Run looks like it could be pretty cool.  From the informative mail:

This was a tiny movie, that we made mostly by pulling favors, and are trying to get any notice on any blogs we can! And keep up with the awesome blog!

 

I promise: more updates, soon, on this awesome blog.

The Bloodletting Starts to Hit the Social Networks

January 8, 2009 /

The economic downturn has started to hit the social networking sites.

The bubble in social networking has burst, decisively. LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut 12 of 28 U.S. employees — and offered them no severance, we’re told…. The company’s product managers and engineers were laid off, leaving only a handful of finance and operations workers — which speaks to a website to be left on life support.

Continue reading

The King is Dead, Long Live the King…

January 7, 2009 /

It turns out he just needed a trip to space to clear his head: Richard Garriott voices his interest in jumping back into the fray:

“After 25 years at Origin, the last thing I wanted to make was yet another medieval fantasy game. Now, after a very interesting break, I’m keen to get back into the fray and work on a new game,” He said to BBC: “Probably medieval fantasy and probably online; there’s something very powerful about getting people together,”

Wikipedia Is What It Is…

January 6, 2009 /

I have no idea if the MUD Threshold RPG is any good. I do know that its founder, Michael Hartman, is one of the most dedicated and prolific posters of MUD-Dev – where, I note, him and I used to get into some knockdown, dragout fights. I note its PLAYERS do – but people are predisposed to consider things they like noteworthy. But is his MUD particularly noteworthy? Beats me. I have no idea where the line is. They apparently consider every Alpha Flight villain and bad metal band I listened to in the 80s to be relevant enough, but not CarnageMUD. Go figure.

So what to make of the Wikipedia kerfuffel that Raph, Scott and Richard have posted about? Bored to death, really. I mean, it’s not like people haven’t been arguing about this for years. Continue reading

Writing Better, Shorter System Docs

December 19, 2008 /

A version of this article first appeared in the December 2008 issue of Game Developer magazine.

It’s always astonishing to see the vast disparity in standards in game design documentation.  Every team and company seems to have their own ideas of how to present their ideas.   I’ve also seen hundreds of sample design documents from dozens of would-be designers when they submit them as work samples along with their resumes.

All these documents seem to have at least one thing in common, though.  Most game design documents I’ve seen really stink.

The lack of standards in writing good game design documentation has resulted in most designers and design teams shooting from the hip, throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a game design document, and then being flabbergasted when programmers choose not to read them.

Here’s a hint: if programmers are asking you to rewrite your 10 page design document into a half-page of bullet points – and you can – your design document presentation probably has room for improvement.  So what makes a good game design document?  Here’s a hint: what did your programmer just ask you to do? Continue reading

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