Guns, Phones, & Magic

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 20, 2011

No, this isn’t a post about mixing guns, phones, and magic in the same fantasy setting. Though as a fan of urban fantasy – I’m 100% for it! This post is actually about attitudes towards magic in fantasy worlds. Specifically RPGs. It’s something I’ve touched on before, and will again. It’s about the impact of […]

Filed Under: Design, Geek Life - Comments: 13 Comments to Read

Why the RPG Hate?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 14, 2011

There’s an obviously linkbait article over at IGN (which works, I’m linking to it here) which praises the upcoming Elder Scrolls title Skyrim by talking about how it doesn’t play like an RPG.  The article summary states, “Even if you think RPGs are dumb, this is a game that will command your attention.” While most […]

Filed Under: Biz, Design - Comments: 24 Comments to Read

RIP Dennis Ritchie

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 13, 2011

Dennis Ritchie, 1941 – 2011 Creator of the “C” programming language, by far the most influential programming language of all time. Also a key developer of the Unix operating system. If you have ever used Java, C#, Javascript, PHP, C++, TorqueScript, or one of a slew of other programming and “scripting” languages, Ritchie was a […]

Filed Under: Programming - Comments: Read the First Comment

Thief’s 3D Rendering

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 11, 2011

This one’s for the programmers.  I got a kick out of it, I expect a few others will, but it probably won’t be too exciting for most readers. My apologies. Sean Barrett has written up a high-to-medium-level explanation of the software 3D rendering he did for Looking Glass’s Thief: The Dark Project. He mentions previous […]

Filed Under: Programming - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Mistakes, Process, Simplicity, and Communication… A Game Development Chat with Corvus Elrod

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 23, 2011

I had a conversation with indie game-maker Corvus Elrod this last week, which can be read over at his website. This one is mainly about design and development thoughts in general (though we do talk about Frayed Knights a little): A Chat with the Rampant Coyote The focus (in my mind) is a lot about […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Single-Player RPGs Do It Better When…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 16, 2011

In his excellent book, “Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games,” Matt Barton makes a comment I somewhat disagreed about considering the future of the genre. In it, he makes a contention echoed by a commenter yesterday that the a lot of the traditional, mechanical combat-oriented gameplay of those old-school RPGs are being […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 13 Comments to Read

Why the RPG Genre is Losing its Distinctiveness

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 29, 2011

The top names in the mainstream games biz – many of whom have a history of producing computer and console RPGs, have now come to question the relevance of the genre. A former Interplay producer claims that RPGs always wanted to be action games at heart, but just lacked the technology to do so.  Even […]

Filed Under: Biz, Design - Comments: 14 Comments to Read

With Great Power Comes Greater Demands

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 17, 2011

Long before anybody was talking about the “Uncanny Valley,” I was informed about the issue at my first post-college job, at the then new start-up Singletrac. I was one of the few “fresh” faces hired, as many of the employees were from the simulation industry. (It’s amusing that they went from simulation to games, and […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Release Date: I Don’t Know

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 3, 2011

Brian Mitsoda answers the frequently asked question about his upcoming game, Dead State: “When is the release date?” He very carefully explains the answer, “I don’t know.” I can only echo everything he says here. I’ve been asked a few times about how you estimate time to complete a project. The answer is that you […]

Filed Under: Production - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

Gimme Details, Baby…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 1, 2011

I enjoyed Craig Stern’s article last week entitled, “Using Details to Craft a Coherent Game World.” Now, on a surface level, Craig sounds like he is mounts the lofty heights of Mount Obvious almost as badly as I do. Details make the world come alive? Gosh! But… if it’s so obvious, why do so many […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

The Feature Creep Cycle

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 18, 2011

So here’s the feature creep cycle, illustrated by user (including developer) requests: 1) Request – “Man, you really need this one little feature. It would totally take things over the top.” Implementation time: 4 hours. 2) Request – “The new feature you added is awesome. But it’s got these bugs in it. And it looks […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

Roll a D20 to Hit: Using Dice-And-Paper Rules in a Computer RPG.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 7, 2011

In his email to me, Craig Stern referred to his article called “The Battle System I Wish RPGs Would Quit Using” as flame-bait. He argues that the old Dungeons & Dragons rules model has long outlived its usefulness. Left at that, he’s probably in good company – even Dungeons & Dragons itself has moved pretty […]

Filed Under: Design, Dice & Paper - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

Difficulty Levels and RPGs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 5, 2011

Should RPGs have difficulty levels? My knee-jerk response is to say, “Of course!” I generally prefer games with difficulty levels. Especially action-RPGs. Especially for an action-RPG like The Witcher 2, which apparently really wants you to play with a gamepad, when I really want to play with a keyboard and mouse. I have a gamepad. […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 16 Comments to Read

Character Skill vs. Player Skill

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 30, 2011

  I’m going to get a little basic right now, since not everybody who reads this blog is a computer role-playing game expert. But mainly because I’ve been putting in 12+ hour days for the day job the last two weeks, and then working on the game instead of sleeping, so “basic” is about all […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 10 Comments to Read

Ultima 9 – How It Might Have Been

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 26, 2011

Yet more historical Ultima development goodies are now avaialable at Ultima Aiera: The original documents for the “Bob White” plot for Ultima IX: Ascension.  This has been rumored and discussed for over a decade. Now you can find the … well, not the original plot for Ultima IX, but a plot that might have been. […]

Filed Under: Design, Retro - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Rolling Your Own

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 23, 2011

Making your own character(s): For some, this is essential to the RPG experience. For others – like me – it’s no big deal. For some, it’s daunting and a reason to avoid playing RPGs altogether. I remember tournaments back in the glory days of tabletop Dungeons & Dragons where players were assigned pre-generated characters.  Or […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 21 Comments to Read



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