Look But Don’t Touch

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 24, 2015

I remember seeing a cool fairy demo for the Matrox 3D cards around 1998 or 1999. I think the demo was either this one, or an earlier version of this one released for the Matrox G400 chipset. Either way, it was cool. The graphics may look embarrassingly primitive today, but they were very competitive with […]

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[Archive] RPG Design: Solving The Brute Force Problem

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 18, 2015

This is a previously-published (and lost) article from many years ago. I’ve discussed it a few times, but usually in reference to this original article. I’ve edited it a little bit and reposted it here. The sad thing was that when I wrote this, Gary Gygax was still alive and kicking butt. *Sigh*. Anyway, now […]

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Learning to Fly… Among Other Things

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 9, 2015

Today, I want to talk about hardcore flight simulators. And Rocksmith 2014. Very different games, but I think the former could learn a little from the latter. And for today’s song, Rocksmith 2014‘s entry for Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” I love how Ellison pulls out the slide during that solo. That’s definitely not required […]

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Dramatic Unrealism

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 29, 2015

Monsters in “dungeons” in RPGs don’t display “realistic” AI for the same reasons that enemy combatants in kung fu movies take turns getting clobbered by the hero / heroine. An organized defense (or offense) would… well, it wouldn’t be any fun. But then, an organized attack against an actual entrenched forces dwelling underground in a […]

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RPG Leveling Mechanics – The Fairy Tale Secret Sauce

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 22, 2015

Every once in a while I’ll hear somebody complain about the leveling mechanics in RPGs, usually about how you start as a nobody with a wooden sword and progress to becoming one of the world’s ultimate superheroes. In particular, the complaints seem to stem from the idea that you always start from such lowly beginnings. […]

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Dungeon Crawling: Ten Ways It Is More Than “Hack & Slash”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 24, 2015

I saw an article not long ago that was equating “Dungeon Crawlers” to more action-heavy, monster-bashing RPGs. It’s what we used to call “hack & slash.” The article maintained that this was the essence of old-school D&D. I disagree. Vehemently. I have no doubt that some people played D&D that way back in the day. […]

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RPG Design: Leveling Up the Game

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 9, 2015

I’m an overachiever. I want bonus XP (eXperience Points). I want to hit the optional sub-quests and pick up the extra-cool Butt-Kicking Boots of Bophram which will be a nice boon to my butt-kicking for at least three more levels. Which I’ll go through a little earlier than “average” because, hey, I like bonus XP […]

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Frayed Knights: Things to Do in a Dungeon (on a Saturday Night)

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 3, 2015

One of my design guidelines for Frayed Knights  is to avoid having too much repetition of an encounter “type” along what is the likely a critical path in my levels. In other words, I don’t want a dungeon that is just full of similar combat encounters. That’s boring. In fact, I try to avoid having […]

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Sometimes I like it a little rough…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 23, 2015

… I’m talking about game polish, of course. What did you think I was talking about? By way of explanation – polish is important. Polish is something that removes the barriers to a player’s enjoyment of the game.  It’s a good thing. But there’s also something to be said for a little bit of rawness, a […]

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What does a Castlevania game have to do with RPGs?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 19, 2015

I can’t say I’m a giant fan of “Metroidvania” games, personally, although I’ve played a decent amount of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (never got *that* good at it, but it was enjoyable). I think my younger self would have enjoyed them a lot more – to the point of near-obsession. As it is… I […]

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RPG Design: The Dungeon as Simulation

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 20, 2015

I kinda missed the earliest days of “0e” Dungeons & Dragons (meaning the original, pre-1st edition game) and similar role-playing games. By the time I got into D&D, 1st edition was The Thing, but it – and the community, such as it was back then – still contained vestiges of that old style of play […]

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Lessons learned from 22 years of making indie RPGs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 19, 2015

Jeff Vogel is something of a personal hero of mine. Nope, I’ve never met him (just know a lot of people who have), though we’ve exchanged a couple of emails and forum posts over the years. I can’t even say I’m a giant fan of his games, although they are quite good. But the guy […]

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Frayed Knights: improvement by constraint. Or: bypassing the hat and going straight to the rabbit

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 18, 2015

It’s funny. Right before Salt Lake Comic Con last fall, I was pretty sure that I’d settled on “it” for the UI for Frayed Knights 2: The Khan of Wrath. And to be fair, as far as keeping things simple enough for strangers to pick up and play the game, I did okay. Not great, […]

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Old-School RPG Design – Navigating and Exploring

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 12, 2015

So I was going to do some research. Just… you know, research. I’m always trying to capture the feel of “old-school” gaming in Frayed Knights, and so I thought I’d go back and check out Might & Magic Book 1 – The Secret of the Inner Sanctum.  So I got hooked on it once, but on […]

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Steven Peeler on Traits in Zombacite

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 9, 2015

Steven Peeler of Soldak Entertainment – the dude behind Depths of Peril, Din’s Curse, and Drox Operative, has a bit to say about a new mechanic in the fantasy-zombie-apocalypse RPG in development, Zombacite. The mechanic is traits – special passive abilities that can be acquired via increased stats. He hopes that it will help encourage […]

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Analyzing Diablo

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 2, 2015

Radek Koncewicz of Incubator Games has done a retrospective of the original Diablo with an eye towards dissecting its design. He includes some commentary on its journey from a more conventional roguelike (Diablo actually started out as a turn-based game) to a best-selling PC action-RPG. An excerpt: “It’s immediately obvious that consumables made up the […]

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