Strategy Can Be Fun – Through The Ages, Playfulness and The Four Horsemen of Work

January 12, 2022 / Podcast / Leave a Comment

Surprise! New podcast! Introducing STRATEGY CAN BE FUN?, a new podcast with myself and Brett Lowey. Brett is a game designer and developer, creator behind BrainGoodGames, frequent guest on the Clockwork Game Design Podcast, and all-around awesome guy. We’ve decided to come up with a new show that we do as a collaborate project, one …

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Randomness, and “Random Value Absorption Thresholds”

December 8, 2021 / Game Design / Leave a Comment

Randomness is very important in game design! This is because randomness allows us to make the game state larger and more complex, without overwhelming the player with too much information and therefore calculation. I’ve been writing about randomness for over a decade at this point, but this article represents my latest, most updated views on …

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“Handicaps”, “Balanced Difficulty” and the one-player perspective

November 9, 2021 / News / Leave a Comment

Did you know that the origin of the word “handicap” is “cap in hand”, thereby suggesting a connection between disabled people (who in the past had been referred to often as “handicapped”) and street beggars/panhandlers? 😬 It definitely seems worth moving on from this term and using another term in its place. While we’re at …

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“Pick 1 of 3” is a missed game design opportunity

September 10, 2021 / Game Design / Leave a Comment

When you’re offered a handful of powers that are highly coupled, and there’s no restriction on picking one over the other, the choice is obvious. If the powers are loosely coupled the choice will be random/arbitrary. In either case, it’s not going to be an interesting decision in my opinion. If you missed it, over …

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