The Publishers Who Will Destroy Your Career

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 24, 2016

A publisher can be awesome. Even as an “indie” – having someone else manage the crap you don’t want to may be absolutely worth it. Things are changing, and the role of a publisher is changing along with it. And in many cases, a publisher can really make a tremendous, positive difference in your sales […]

Filed Under: Biz, Game Development, Writing - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Game Development: Try it, you might like it. Or it might consume your soul.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 6, 2016

James Wymore talked recently about the difference between those who want to write novels, and those who want to have written a novel. This resonated with me both as a writer and as a game developer. When interviewing people for positions for the game studio, there were people who I felt would do anything short […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Writing - Comments: Read the First Comment

Games as Art: Communication Required?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 22, 2016

I recently read an old essay (we’re talking pre-WWW!) discussing what makes art, and the author suggested that for a work to be art it has to engage the audience in a conversation… inviting them to mentally and / or emotionally contribute, interpret, and invest something of themselves into the work to derive meaning from it. […]

Filed Under: Art, Geek Life - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Unity Asset Store Community Sale: ProBuilder Advanced On Sale

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 12, 2016

Unity’s community sale is going on for the next 3 days (as of this post). One of the assets on sale is ProBuilder. I have high recommendations for this one. We’re using it in Frayed Knights 2: The Khan of Wrath (actually, we’re taking advantage of much of the ProCore Bundle Package… which sadly isn’t part […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Tech - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Create Something New

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 5, 2016

Dave Farland, fantasy author, writes about “Dream Making.”  This hit home: “But several times in the past few weeks, I’ve heard people describe the basic ideas for their novels, and felt that the basic concept was so weak, that I had to wonder, “Why would you write that one?” In each case, I was talking […]

Filed Under: Design, Writing - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

The Triangle of Game Development Speed

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 1, 2016

Rachel Aaron – author, geek, and gamer – once figured out a way to drastically improve her writing speed, by a factor of 5, with some tweaks to her process. I’m always reading these kinds of things with an eye towards optimizing both of my passions — writing and game development — and I noted […]

Filed Under: Production, Writing - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Frayed Knights: Things Coming Together

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 21, 2016

While it was from my era, I never really watched the TV show “The A-Team.” I think I saw one full episode. Some things are a little too ridiculous even for a kid to suspend disbelief. But the catchphrase from one of the characters stuck even without me watching the show… “I love it when […]

Filed Under: Frayed Knights, Production - Comments: Read the First Comment

Becoming an Indie is easy. Success is what’s hard.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 29, 2016

An article at Gamasutra last week proposed 10 easy, one-liner steps to becoming an indie game developer. It was instantly met with criticism, and some arguably better articles appeared correcting the deficiencies. But while the original author made it sound like a more generalized blueprint to “going indie,” it really just outlined the straightforward approach […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

RPG Design: There’s a Reaper in the Basement

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 23, 2016

Lord British has a very powerful Reaper in his basement in Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Souls. This is a problem. But maybe not in the way you expect. It’s extremely hard to defeat, but not impossible. Therein lies the rub. If it was “level appropriate,” it would be just another combat encounter. If it was […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Utah Unity Users Group Meeting – Feb 2016

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 19, 2016

The quarterly meeting of the Utah Unity Users Group Meeting began with the usual Monty Python jokes about the “UUUG” acronym in a classroom at Salt Lake Community College. Then we launched into pizza, networking, and a word from our sponsors. In particular, we heard from KForce Staffing & Solutions, the bringers of the pizza. […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Programming - Comments: Comments are off for this article

The Game Engine Competition Heats Up

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 18, 2016

Over the last couple of weeks, the competition for game engines has gotten more interesting. Now, I’ve got zero interest in abandoning Unity at this point. I’m pretty comfortable with it, and it has so far proven to be every bit as powerful as I need it to be. But for those still looking at […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

What We Can Learn From Doom

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 11, 2016

Relatively short, sweet, and good for making you think – what gameplay lessons can we learn from Doom: Now I don’t know about the magic number 7 (and after all, Doom 2 increased the bad guy count anyway), but I think this guy nails the basics of it. I remember a criticism of an early […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Felipe Pepe tackles the nature of the RPG

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 9, 2016

Elitist Old Farts unite! Or… uh, not. Why should we start now? Felipe Pepe has composed a not-short article describing the nature of role-playing games, which largely breaks down into a discussion of why they are getting so difficult to define, and why they are proving difficult to… *cough* evolve. Why Are RPGs So Difficult to […]

Filed Under: Design, Geek Life - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Design: Why RPGs Shouldn’t Be Too Short

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 25, 2016

Several years ago I wrote an article musing over the possibility of “short-form” RPGs… like the equivalent of a short story vs. a novel.  In retrospect, I think I understand the reasons why. Live and learn. In general, RPGs are about character development. This happens on the mechanical level, as you level up from a […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 18 Comments to Read

The Jedi are Mother, the Jedi are Father…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 4, 2016

We’re still in a spoiler-free zone here, as this has nothing to do with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, other than having helped inspire this musing. It was also inspired by our Thanksgiving family session of the D20 Star Wars RPG. I haven’t read many of the non-canonical “Expanded Universe” Star Wars books. So a […]

Filed Under: Design, Geek Life, Movies, Writing - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

RPG Design: Drawing Inspiration from Maps

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 30, 2015

Level 7. It was the most notorious level of the Ultima Underworld series. It was responsible for me giving up on the game for several weeks. Of course, the reason for all that wasn’t the map itself, but the anti-magic effect. But to me, this is an example of what a really awesome dungeon level […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



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