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 …
“Handicaps”, “Balanced Difficulty” and the one-player perspective Read More »
Gamelessness — the feeling of desperately wanting to play a game, but being unable to find a specific game that you want to play. I’ve experienced a lot of this, particularly over the last twenty years. It’s a big reason why I’m a game developer, and why game development as an activity tends to win …
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 …
“Pick 1 of 3” is a missed game design opportunity Read More »
Hello all! I have a special episode for you today, wherein we have a great big discussion on MAGIC: THE GATHERING – something I haven’t really dived into too deeply before on the show. For most of my life I was very, very skeptical of these games – I still think, for good reason. But …
Let’s talk about Magic: The Gathering, with two experts Read More »
Hello everyone and welcome to the 91st episode of the CLOCKWORK GAME DESIGN PODCAST! Today’s guest is Dan Felder, a game designer who has worked at several studios, including EA, Blizzard, and Abrakam Games, where he worked on the popular CCG, Faeria. He also has written a bunch of game design articles on game balance, …
Free-to-play, Gacha games and game design discourse with Dan Felder Read More »
Here’s the complete list of all my games, ranked BEST to WORST – with helpful links if you wanna go check them out! UPDATE: people asked me to say a few words about each game and why it is where it is on the list. I’m going to skip 1-3 because I feel very positively …
