Category Archives: Design

I make fun of systems designers a lot because I am one. I wear a lot of hats, and I actually love to code, but deep down, it’s all about the game systems. People who think like me are really … Continue reading →

It was a viral video going around for a while — the Invisible Gorilla experiment. (If you never saw it, you can watch it here… the rest of this blog-post is a spoiler!) (Although to be fair, just saying the … Continue reading →

Our indie MMORPG development continues! Together, Sandra and I are able to put about 20 hours a week toward the game, which isn’t much, but makes continuous progress. It’s coming along well, and it’s been very exciting to get past … Continue reading →

Blizzard has been revealing newly-revised classes recently. The Priest has a new power that sounds pretty fun: Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or “Life Grip”) is intended to … Continue reading →

[This post was written about month ago when STO was first launched. I tried to age it like a fine wine ... which didn't work. So I might as well post it before it spoils completely! But anyway, the server … Continue reading →

Side Note: Turbine Games Still Need More Polish What’s Turbine been doing the past year? Nothing too exciting, it seems… even though DDO went free-to-play and is apparently making lots of cash, it still has only a skeleton crew working … Continue reading →

I read Scott Jenning’s blog post about how terrible the year was for MMOs, and I had to agree that it wasn’t a fun year for MMO companies. “But still,” I thought to myself, “If I had my own blog, … Continue reading →

I know how easy it is for a game to die early in its life. Asheron’s Call 2 had a promising career as a small but profitable MMO, but that was dashed very early because the game’s chat system broke … Continue reading →

“Learn to think like a designer, not a player.” You’ll hear this a lot from game developers giving advice to would-be designers. And it’s not wrong … but taken at face value, it leads to being a sub-par designer. There’s … Continue reading →

All game designers should take a few courses in psychology. This will help a lot more than you think, especially if you’re aiming to be a systems designer (as opposed to a level or content designer). Game design is an … Continue reading →