In this episode we are with Francesco Ficarelli of Heartbit Interactive, an Italian indie game development software house; we talk about their Doom & Destiny game past and future, and also about game design & storytelling. [Read more…]
Doomed to listen: Heartbit Interactive – DAG pod 16
24 April 2014 By Leave a Comment
Game Development with Unity 2D – part 3: GUI, or No Text is an Island
02 February 2014 By 7 Comments
This is the third part of a voyage in Unity 2D development, where we document in video the design and development of a simple strategic game reproducing the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Here are Part 1, Part 2, Part 4.
Video
In this part three we are going to have health bars, labels and winning conditions; here is the video (also directly on YouTube watch it in HD for a better experience): [Read more…]
Game Development with Unity 2D – part 2: Javelins & Battle Cries
14 January 2014 By 9 Comments
Game Development with Unity 2D – part 1: The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
06 January 2014 By 7 Comments
In this episode of our voyage in Unity 2D development, we create the first version of our Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
Here are Part 0, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
In this first video we see the basics of Unity 2D sprites and animations (as provided in Unity 4.3 and following), and a base class structure for a strategic game. [Read more…]
10 different books game designers could read
15 December 2013 By 1 Comment
I was recently made temporarily unhappy by reading 10 books every gamer should read from The Guardian.
Apart from the misleading title, the article is sort of ok in the sense that it presents books that have repeatedly inspired some game designers in creating games, and in this sense it is a historical reconstruction. But looking at literature is a unique opportunity for searching new roads and new ways to get inspired for your game design: so let’s not consider the little world of literature “for games”, but simply intense, inspiring literature! [Read more…]
Goscurry: from sadism to poetry – DAG pod 13
29 October 2013 By 1 Comment
In this relaxed and delightful episode of Design a Game podcast we talk with Daniele Giardini, the creator of Goscurry.
We talk about game inspiration and design, game balancing, Unity development, the decline of 3D in games, camera usage and more. [Read more…]
Hobby Game Dev – DAG pod 10
06 May 2013 By Leave a Comment
In this episode of the Design a Game podcast we had the fortune of interviewing Chris DeLeon of Hobby Game Dev, game creator extraordinaire and driving force of several community initiatives linked to game development. Given the multifaceted nature of Chris’ interests, this is a quite long podcast, but we promise that it is worth listening from start to end. Here is the podcast:
A correction from Chris: he refers to the guy who made Command & Conquer editing programs as “Andre Griffith”, Chris double checked and his name is “Andrew Griffin”.
And here follow some of the numerous references.
Hobby Game Dev site: http://www.hobbygamedev.com/
“Indeview” interview on projects and processes:
Interview on my technical choices, processes, and projects
Ms Vision By Proxy:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/giraffasaurus/ms-vision-by-proxy
Georgia Tech Experimental Game Lab:
http://egl.gatech.edu/
Cerny method:
http://www.slideshare.net/holtt/cerny-method
Ian Bogost, news, games:
http://game-o-matic.com/
http://www.bogost.com/books/newsgamesbook.shtml
http://indiegames.com/2012/03/ian_bogost_on_gamifying_the_ne.html
DeLeon Master’s Thesis for Georgia Tech, 2012: Arcade-style game design: postwar pinball and the golden age of coin-op videogames (PDF)
http://chrisdeleon.com/gatech/
Tomb Raider Geocaches – Küstenwald
Just Cause 2
http://www.justcause.com/
http://www.justcause.com/
Believers Bedlam:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/615965
Scratch (MIT):
http://scratch.mit.edu/
DeLeon’s Unity3D basic tutorial
Bubble Bobble
Seth Godin:
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/
Videogames between oral and written culture
30 April 2013 By Leave a Comment
The 2013 GDC game design lecture above is called Talking to the Player – How Cultural Currents Shape and Level Design, and its by Mathias Worch. Its interesting core point is looking at videogames as a form of secondary orality.
The talk goes in detail among many themes about the relationship between movies (linked to print, sequential logic) and games, and how their language and logic differs, and how much logic and coherence games require, because of their not strictly linear nature. Linear logics don’t “hit home”, because the right metaphor is conversation, not linear stories.
The core question is “how to assert authorship without hard-coding meaning”?
Game play as dialogue is yet another lens under which you should check your game design.
The talk has been reposted by Koster in the context of the ongoing debate on how games are / should be defined – but fortunately it is not necessary to get into that to gain all that is interesting from the talk above!
So now you are into cart life, Bandini?
31 March 2013 By Leave a Comment
Arturo Bandini smuggled in his cat. Eating, sleeping, smoking – that’s his day. Occasionally, random attempts at getting something done.
Humans are met, some bound is formed and immediately broken. Arthur recently changed his name, to confuse creditors. Now he’s called Andrus Poder, and pretends to be working at a newspaper stand.
Here are John Fante’s works, and here is an interview with Cart Life author, Richard Hofmeier. The two inhabit the same hallucinated and deeply realistic world, just in a slightly different time and media.
Humor in videogames
16 February 2013 By Leave a Comment
In designing a videogame, using humor stunts is a great temptation. There is a core problem with that: funny things are funny once, and videogames are made of loops and must allow for several game plays of the same game. [Read more…]
