Josh Bycer's Blog
For more than seven years, I have been researching and contributing to the field of game design. These contributions range from QA for professional game productions to writing articles for sites like Gamasutra and Quarter To Three.
With my site Game-Wisdom our goal is to create a centralized source of critical thinking about the game industry for everyone from enthusiasts, game makers and casual fans; to examine the art and science of games. I also do video plays and analysis on my Youtube channel. I also have a Patreon Campaign set up to help support my family and keep things running while I continue to put out content here and on my site.
Member Blogs
For this week's video game analysis, Josh Bycer of Game-Wisdom looked at how Pacman Championship Edition managed to elevate one of the most recognizable game designs.
A Fail State in a video game is something that no one wants to experience, but it still requires an eye towards balance to keep people invested in your game.
Josh Bycer of Game-Wisdom takes a look into the Idle/Clicker Genre to explain how these games manage to hook people despite having little gameplay.
Stealth game design has evolved over the years, and in today's post, I'm examining the two broad philosophies of it.
The recent debate over Cuphead's tutorial and demo out of Gamescom frames a special video going off my thoughts and a lesson on how to build tutorials.
The recent announcement of We Happy Few's change in scope has left fans puzzled, and gives us another discussion regarding the perception of AAA design.
Josh Bycer's Comments
Comment In:
[Blog - 08/18/2017 - 10:56]
It 's ultimately better to ...
It 's ultimately better to have fewer choices that are more impactful vs. choice overload. I do like the suggestion regarding categorizing choices into a series and spreading them out. That way the player isn 't immediately hit by 50 things to decide when they start, and it works better ...
Comment In:
[Blog - 08/04/2017 - 09:10]
Everyone talking about Persona 5 ...
Everyone talking about Persona 5 reminds me that I have to return to it at some point. I made it to the final palace and just got burnt out on the game.
Comment In:
[Blog - 07/10/2017 - 10:13]
Regarding point 1, you may ...
Regarding point 1, you may be right about the sandbags not being the best example. However, later VC games do introduce ludomechanical dissonance in the form of elite/boss versions of classes who can essentially fight their own counters. This is similar to the elite enemy variants in Age of Empires ...
Comment In:
[Blog - 07/03/2017 - 09:00]
Interesting post. This is one ...
Interesting post. This is one of the biggest things that can kill simulation-styled games for me. It doesn 't matter how complex the systems are under the hood, if player choice is boiled down to only a few set outcomes. Too often it seems that people view complexity as depth, ...
Comment In:
[Blog - 06/15/2017 - 10:08]
I agree with you about ...
I agree with you about the importance of talking about failure. I 've spoken to developers on my podcasts who 've ran into cases where their games didn 't sell and it 's an important lesson for students that the Game Industry isn 't I just need to make a ...
Comment In:
[Blog - 06/16/2017 - 09:40]
Really great post Jeff, and ...
Really great post Jeff, and was one of the reasons I bounced off of Pillars so fast. There is a time and a place for good lore not when I have no idea how to build a character or what abilities do. What did you think of the Souls series ...
