Press the X Button to Watch the Game?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 18, 2011

I got a chuckle from a tweet by Brenda Brathwaite complaining about an RPG her kid was playing: An Old-School RPG Designer Grouses. Somewhere down the line, game designers discovered that “immersive” no longer had anything to do with “interactive.” It instead meant “cinematic” plus “press a button to see something awesome happen.” Okay, no, […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 13 Comments to Read

Game Design: Small Choices

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 14, 2011

As a gamer, we want deeply meaningful decisions that can change the whole course of the story, a la the old Choose Your Own Adventure books. We want big, dramatic decisions with big, dramatic consequences. Unfortunately, reality dictates that we must usually settle for something less. Too often it’s a lot less, and we get […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Game Development: Make Pong

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 11, 2011

To those who are aspiring to make games but have trouble getting started, I have a suggestion you may not like: Make Pong. Make it single-player, with AI controlling the other paddle. Finish it, making it ready for release to strangers. This means a complete installer for a downloadable game, or an attractive page for […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 20 Comments to Read

Are Games Becoming More Passive?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 6, 2011

I guess the picture of old-school level design verses modern level design that came out a few months ago has really caught on. I noticed John Romero and Tom Hall even used it in their post-mortem of Doom at the Game Developer’s Conference earlier this year. (And might I add… what a cool idea, to […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 20 Comments to Read

Why Our RPGs Still Need Numbers

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 24, 2011

Luke Plunkett at Kotaku asks the question: “Why Do Our Role-Playing Games Still Need Numbers Everywhere?”  Though it’s not so much of a question as a call to get rid of such archaic relics of the past. The Snark So first off, I’ll offer the defensive, snarky response that you are waiting for: “We’re already […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 23 Comments to Read

The Ancient Games of the Rampant Coyote, part 2

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 23, 2011

Here are a couple more old unfinished games from my distant past development efforts that I managed to salvage somehow. Unfortunately, many others have been lost – probably forever – including a few of “finished” games (never publicly released, though). But here are two more that I managed to dredge up and actually run: The […]

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

RPG Design: Returning to Base

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 18, 2011

Many computer role-playing games (CRPGs) have a concept of a “home base” for the player – a safe location to return to in order to rest, heal, trade, advance, acquire and complete quests, and so forth. The actual location may change as the game advances, but these safe spots (which may literally be “save spots” […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 23 Comments to Read

Over-Streamlining the CRPG?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 15, 2011

I was nodding along in general agreement (or maybe it was just sympathy) with indie game developer Lars Doucet up until the point where he tried to call a tower defense game an RPG. But I have to admit, in spite of my immediate “WTF?” reaction, the game does sound really fun. We’ll have to […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 16 Comments to Read

Puzzles and RPGs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 11, 2011

It felt somewhat serendipitous that I found this excellent interview with Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games – maker of commercial indie graphic adventure games – while I was in the middle of adding some more adventure-game-esque puzzles to Frayed Knights.  It provided extra fodder for thought on things I’ve been a-pondering lately, including puzzles […]

Filed Under: Adventure Games, Design - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Weekend Game Developer Articles

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 5, 2011

A lot happened this week, partly courtesy of the Game Developer’s Conference, and partly just… inspired by stuff. Too much for me to share. But I’ll take a stab at it. For example: Craig  Stern (Telepath RPG) is the latest to step up to the plate to try and define the Computer Role-Playing Game. I […]

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

How Much of a CRPG Should Be “Optional?”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 1, 2011

I asked this on Twitter yesterday, with a couple of responses, but I thought I’d post this on the ol’ blog as well, as I’ve noted that the masochistic folks who hang around here tend to be pretty educated on the subject of RPG design. So today, I wanted to talk about optional content. Generally […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 16 Comments to Read

You Know Your Game Is Too Long When It Takes 17 Years to Play It…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 25, 2011

Okay, that’s not exactly the case. Or not even remotely. But I amused myself with the title, and that’s what this blog is all about, really… 😉 Cleve, developer of the legendary vaporware RPG Grimoire has apparently finally played through the entire game, start-to-finish, without cheat codes, for the first time in the seventeen years […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 16 Comments to Read

Hanako Understands the Problem with Dragon Age. Bioware Doesn’t.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 24, 2011

I got riled up about this article.  I was planning a big retort, though I still feel kinda bad commenting on a game I feel I’ve barely played.  But that was kind of the point. I was one of those people who quit only a few hours in. And my reasons were almost the exact […]

Filed Under: Design, Mainstream Games - Comments: 23 Comments to Read

What Does a Game Producer / Manager / Leader Actually Do?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 23, 2011

When I was in the trenches of game development early in my career, I was lucky enough to have some producers / managers who were pretty good at their job. Later on, in other jobs (including many outside of the games biz), I wasn’t always so lucky. A couple of days ago, in response to […]

Filed Under: Biz, Production - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Podcast Interview – Dungeons of Dredmor (Gaslamp Games)

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 22, 2011

Okay, I confess – I’m not a big fan of podcasts. Yes, I’ve been in ’em… but it’s not my thing. The reason is that I can’t work and listen to a podcast at the same time. I can do it if I’m playing a familiar game that doesn’t have any necessary dialog to read […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Interviews, Production - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

The Best Bugs of Ultima Underworld

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 21, 2011

As I’m in the midst of serious bug-fixing and last-minute changes to Frayed Knights, this article by Dan Schmidt, one of the programmers for Ultima Underworld (and a couple of little-known game series called “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band“) arrived at a perfect time and gave me a good laugh. I’m sure both developers and […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Retro - Comments: 8 Comments to Read



« previous top next »