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Ernest Adams
Ernest Adams is a freelance game designer, writer, and lecturer, and a member of the International Hobo game design consortium. He is the author of two books, Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design, with Andrew Rollings; and Break Into the Game Industry: How to Get a Job Making Video Games. Ernest was most recently employed as a lead designer at Bullfrog Productions, and for several years before that he was the audio/video producer on the Madden NFL Football product line. He has developed on-line,
computer, and console games for everything from the IBM 360 mainframe to the Playstation 2. He was a founder of the International Game Developers' Association, and a frequent lecturer at the Game Developers' Conference. Ernest would be happy to receive E-mail about his columns at ewadams@designersnotebook.com, and you may visit his professional web site at http://www.designersnotebook.com.
The views in this column are strictly his own.
Features by Ernest Adams:
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! XII [12.26.11]
The Designer's Notebook: Passion Versus Professionalism [10.25.11]
The Designer's Notebook: Eight Ways To Make a Bad Tutorial [06.14.11]
The Designer's Notebook: Introducing The Blitz Online [04.13.11]
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! XI [12.02.10]
The Designer's Notebook: Don't March, Dance! [10.28.10]
The Designer's Notebook: Sandbox Storytelling [08.25.10]
The Designer's Notebook: Preventing the Downward Spiral [05.12.10]
The Designer's Notebook: Selling Hate and Humiliation [04.08.10]
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! X [12.07.09]
The Designer's Notebook: How to Write Sports Commentary [09.29.09]
The Designer's Notebook: Sorting Out the Genre Muddle [07.09.09]
The Designer's Notebook: The Genre That Would Not Die! [04.14.09]
The Designer's Notebook: Numbers, Emotions, and Behavior [01.27.09]
The Designer's Notebook: The Moral Panic Isn't Over Yet [11.25.08]
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! IX [10.09.08]
The Designer's Notebook: The Tao of Game Design [08.19.08]
The Designer's Notebook: Difficulty Modes and Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment [05.14.08]
The Designer's Notebook: Damn All Gameplay Patents! [03.05.08]
The Designer's Notebook: Ten Years Of Great Games [11.26.07]
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! VIII [09.04.07]
The Designer's Notebook: Why Design Documents Matter [07.17.07]
Designer's Notebook: Is It Time to Dump EA? [06.06.07]
The Designer’s Notebook: Why Action Games Suck (And What To Do About It) [05.01.07]
The Designer’s Notebook: Why Action Games Suck (And What To Do About It) [05.01.07]
The Designer's Notebook: Asymmetric Peacefare [01.31.07]
The Designer's Notebook: PS3 versus Wii - The Designer's Perspective [12.22.06]
The Designer's Notebook: Employees Leaving? Deal With It! [11.02.06]
The Designer's Notebook: Revenge of the Highbrow Games [09.29.06]
The Designer's Notebook: Where's Our Merchant Ivory? [08.07.06]
The Designer's Notebook: 'Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!' VII [07.10.06]
The Designer's Notebook: Introducing Ken Perlin's Law [06.01.06]
Designer's Notebook: Cheer Up! Video Games are in Great Shape [04.21.06]
Designer's Notebook: Strange Agents Are Profiling Our Games! [03.02.06]
Designer's Notebook: Strange Agents Are Profiling Our Games! [03.02.06]
The Designer's Notebook: Multi-level Gameplay [01.30.06]
Designer's Notebook: The End Of Copyright [11.28.05]
Designer's Notebook: The Unique Design Challenge of Pinball Simulations [10.03.05]
The Designer's Notebook: The Bill of Players’ Rights [08.26.05]
The Designer's Notebook: You Must Play Façade, Now! [07.28.05]
The Designer's Notebook: A Letter from the Cockpit [06.28.05]
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! VI [06.03.05]
The Designer's Notebook: A Few Remarks on Creative Play [04.29.05]
The Designer's Notebook: The Act - Emotion Control with Single-Knob Gameplay [04.01.05]
The Designer's Notebook: What's On The Designer's Bookshelf? [02.23.05]
The Designer's Notebook: Educational Games Don't Have to Stink! [01.26.05]
The Designer's Notebook: How Many Endings Does a Game Need? [12.22.04]
The Designer's Notebook: Dramatic Novelty in Games and Stories [11.15.04]
The Designer's Notebook: The Perils of Bottom-up Game Design [10.18.04]
The Designer's Notebook: A Perfect Short Game [09.15.04]
The Designer's Notebook: Kicking Butt by the Numbers: Lanchester's Laws [08.06.04]
The Designer's Notebook: Postmodernism and the 3 Types of Immersion [07.09.04]
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! V [06.11.04]
Designer's Notebook: Designing with Gameplay Modes and Flowboards [05.10.04]
The Designer's Notebook: The Best of the Game Design Workshops [04.02.04]
Random Thoughts on Mobile Games [02.20.04]
The Designer's Notebook: What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of NPCs? [01.16.04]
The Designer's Notebook: Inside a Game Design Company [12.02.03]
The Designer's Notebook: Hardware Designers - Talk To Us! [10.22.03]
The Designer's Notebook: Not Just Rappers and Athletes: Minorities in Videogames [08.27.03]
The Designer's Notebook: Tuning Puzzle Games for Non-Puzzle Gamers [08.06.03]
The Designer's Notebook: In The Beginning Was The Word [07.02.03]
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! IV [05.23.03]
The Designer's Notebook: Defining The Physical Dimension of a Game Setting [04.30.03]
The Designer's Notebook: Defining The Physical Dimension of a Game Setting [04.30.03]
Designer's Notebook: More Sex(es) in Computer Games [04.01.03]
The Designer's Notebook: What Kind of Designer Are You? [01.27.03]
The Designer's Notebook Turns Five: A Look Back [11.08.02]
Designer's Notebook: The Role of Architecture in Videogames [10.09.02]
Designer's Notebook: Stop Calling Games [07.26.02]
From Casual to Core: A Statistical Mechanism for Studying Gamer Dedication [06.05.02]
Technology Inspires Creativity: Indie Game Jam Inverts Dogma 2001! [05.31.02]
Putting Madden in Madden: Memoirs of an EA Sports Video Producer [04.26.02]
Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! III [02.08.02]
Designer's Notebook: Positive Feedback [01.04.02]
The Day the "Fun" Became Real [10.19.01]
My "Next" Games: Families, Psychology, and Murder [08.08.01]
Replayability, Part 2: Game Mechanics [07.03.01]
Replayability, Part One: Narrative [05.21.01]
Brian Moriarty on Text RPGs and Skotos Tech [04.09.01]
Dogma 2001: A Challenge to Game Designers [02.02.01]
Designing Need-based AI for Virtual Gorillas [12.22.00]
Sex in Videogames, Part 3: Dramatic Significance [11.21.00]
Sex in Videogames, Part 2: Explicit Sex [10.05.00]
Sex in Videogames, Part 1: Seduction [09.15.00]
Casual Versus Core [08.01.00]
Designer's Notebook: Breaking the Rules (Ernest Goes To The Movies) [07.06.00]
Death (and Planescape: Torment) [05.19.00]
The Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! II [03.31.00]
The Designer's Notebook: Some Thoughts on Archaic Language [02.29.00]
The Designer's Notebook: A Letter from a Dungeon [01.26.00]
The Designer's Notebook: Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers [12.29.99]
Designer's Notebook: It's Time to Bring Back Adventure Games [11.09.99]
The Designer's Notebook: I Can't Keep Up! [10.22.99]
The Designer's Notebook: Designing and Developing Sports Games [09.24.99]
The Designer's Notebook: Reflections on the Colorado School Massacre [08.20.99]
The Designer's Notebook: Simplification [07.16.99]
The Designer's Notebook: Tolkien, Beethoven, Vision [06.18.99]
The Designer's Notebook: The Slippery Slope of Advertising [05.28.99]
The Designer's Notebook: Shut Up and Design! [04.09.99]
The Designer's Notebook: Let’s Put the Magic Back in Magic [03.12.99]
Designer's Notebook: How To Be Weird [02.12.99]
Designer's Notebook: Interstate'76 and the Principles of Harmony [01.15.99]
Designer's Notebook: How to Get Started in the Game Industry: Part II [12.18.98]
Designer's Notebook: How to Get Started in the Game Industry: Part I [12.11.98]
Designer's Notebook: Creating Opponents for Wargames [11.20.98]
Designer's Notebook: A Symmetry Lesson [10.16.98]
Designer's Notebook: The VR Gorilla-Rhino Test [08.14.98]
Designer's Notebook: In Memoriam: Danielle Berry [07.17.98]
Designer's Notebook: Cartographic Cartwheels [06.19.98]
Designer's Notebook: Gulliver and Game Design [05.22.98]
Designer's Notebook: Implementing God in the On-Line World [04.24.98]
Designer's Notebook: Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! [03.13.98]
Designer's Notebook: Games for Girls? Eeeeewwww! [02.13.98]
Designer's Notebook: Not Just Another Scary Face [01.16.98]
Designer's Notebook: Why 'On-Line Community' is an Oxymoron [12.05.97]
Designer's Notebook: Dr. Livingstone, I Presume? [11.28.97]
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