What We Can Glean From Lost Planet's Chaotic Multiplayer  |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Tue, 18 May 2010 01:39:00 EDT in
Design
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| Lost Planet is a very pretty, very chaotic and unbalanced multiplayer-centric third person shooter. These are some things this strange game from the East has taught me. |
| Read More... | 3 Comments |
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A Critical Retort to Roger Ebert on Games as Art |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Sat, 17 Apr 2010 03:53:00 EDT in
Design
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| The discussion surrounding videogames as art is a tired one we would all like to forget. But Roger Ebert is insistent, and perhaps rightly so, to continue the debate. I'm just not sure he understands the field he is criticizing. |
| Read More... | 26 Comments |
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Suffering and Altruism -- A Ramble on the Added Value of Character States |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:28:00 EDT in
Design
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| Thoughts on adding moment to moment variation by investigating the role of player states for both players and AI. |
| Read More... | 8 Comments |
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Objective/Gameplay Dissonance |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:06:00 EDT in
Design
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| Objectives shouldn't be distractions, they should be systems that reward excellence at core gameplay, or teamwork. |
| Read More... | 6 Comments |
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Paul Ferenc Has a Plan -- A User Story |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:36:00 EDT in
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| A recorded playsession of Far Cry 2, written in the voice of a player. |
| Read More... | 0 Comments |
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Why No Female Soldiers? |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:58:00 EST in
Design
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| Kotaku proffered that there is a lack of virtual female soldiers in video games chiefly because it's too much work to create the extra models needed to display female counterparts. I argue that it's a real world issue, and explore the deeper question. |
| Read More... | 6 Comments |
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Leave The Meat Off My Bones, Please |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:28:00 EST in
Design
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| Let's halt for a second and reflect on what story offers a videogame -- can it be damaging? What are good videogame stories? Are games with stories good because of the stories? Do we even need them? I have no idea, but I'd like to talk about it more. |
| Read More... | 5 Comments |
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On The Practical Application of Multiplayer Matchmaking |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:16:00 EST in
Design
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| Trueskill is Microsoft's matchmaking system evolved from the Chess Elo system -- but does it work for the players that populate video games? |
| Read More... | 3 Comments |
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The Conundrum of the Multiplayer Mindshare |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:33:00 EST in
Design
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| The pulsing, constantly dividing organism that is the multiplayer gaming community can only split its attention so much. Why do multiplayer games get made when they will predictably fail to grab part of that organism? |
| Read More... | 7 Comments |
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The Effects of Imaginary Value in Real Virtual Worlds |
| Posted by Nick Halme on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:02:00 EDT in
Design
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| The MMO is governed by numbers and hierarchies whose arrangement has enormous effects on a game and its audience -- why a smaller ecosystem is probably safer. |
| Read More... | 0 Comments |
