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

How Much Does It Cost To Make a Video Game?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 7, 2015

I want to make a video game. How much will it cost? How much time will it take? How many people do I need on my team? How much can I expect to sell? These are all what we often call “How long is a piece of string?” questions. There are so many variables involved […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism, Production - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

Minimum Survival Skills in a Post-Gold Rush Game Development World

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 5, 2015

Can you spot the common thread(s)? “Several different sources have indicated that the company has already used the majority of its funding, but not much has been created to show for it. The number most often received from people has indicated that, currently, the company has less than $8 million of what was raised from […]

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On Ego Trips and Publishing Pace

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 17, 2015

Since I’m now doing double-duty as both a writer and a game developer (gee, anything else I should acquire as a major hobby / side occupation? Maybe get a law degree?), it’s been interesting having a foot in both camps and watching the parallels. Both have enjoyed an indie revolution, which has caused a good […]

Filed Under: Books, Production - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

Good Crunch and Bad Crunch

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 21, 2015

Crunch is when people working on a project put forth the “extra effort.” It’s long hours, late nights, sacrificed weekends, and often heightened tempers. I’ve done my share of crunch, both inside and outside the games industry. I’ve done crunch as a game developer both as a full-time employee and as an indie. I could […]

Filed Under: Biz, Production - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Making Games – Towards More Productive Iteration

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 24, 2015

I’m a firm believer in iterative design. I don’t practice it as well as I should, but I strongly believe in it. In games, it’s the ‘right thing.’ In my world, I usually start with a “paper prototype” – forcing myself to think about a concept methodically enough to describe it in a paragraph or […]

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

Indie Hats

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 5, 2015

I have the brain of a programmer. Or maybe I just have the programming of a programmer. This bites me in the butt as an indie. If I’m not coding, I don’t feel like I’m doing “work.” This is wrong, wrong, wrong, and I have to keep working at it. Because, with that attitude, I […]

Filed Under: Production - Comments: Read the First Comment

Productivity: The Group of Three

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 12, 2015

The middle 50%+ of game development is the hardest for most people, I’ve found. At the beginning of the project, the game is being built up from nothing and is making rapid improvements daily. It’s exciting and motivating. And at the end, even though it’s a hard slog, you can see the light at the […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Production - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

To swap or not to swap game engines …

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 18, 2014

I love Unity. I’m very, very happy about it. My art guys… well, maybe not so much, but I think it’s more of a matter of what they are used to. But although this article isn’t favorable towards Unity (it’s not really unfavorable, either), it’s an outstanding discussion of the analysis and challenge of switching […]

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Building Awesome RPG Levels Blazingly Fast By Embracing Feature Creep

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 16, 2014

“Create as if nobody will ever see it; then polish as if millions will.” I saw this advice for writing, and wondered how applicable it would be for games. The first part – creating as if nobody will see it – gives the writer two benefits. The first is a freedom to write whatever kind […]

Filed Under: Books, Frayed Knights, Production - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Research – Going Down the Rabbit Hole

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 23, 2014

Today’s post is actually on another site – in this case, Xchyler Publishing. I’m a guest poster there today… Author Spotlight – Jay Barnson: Researching the Story, or Down the Rabbit Hole This is another article that could have been written about game design as easily as story development. And for me, it’s often one […]

Filed Under: Books, Production - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Game Dev Quote of the Week – Getting it Done

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 10, 2014

Designer / Developer Chris DeLeon , speaking on the matters of … uh, how to finish your game: “It’s common now to see developers finish game jam games more ready for public release than their long-term projects. The two main factors that seem to contribute are having a smaller scope and an unmoving deadline. The […]

Filed Under: Production, Quote of the Week - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Game Dev Quote of the Week: A Bird In the Hand Edition

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 4, 2014

Christer Kaitila, noted game-jammer and the creator of the One Game a Month initiative, wrote an article at the beginning of the year about how to succeed at making one game a month. It was really tough to pull out a single quote out of a fantastic advice-packed article, but here’s one: “Perfection is, by […]

Filed Under: Production, Quote of the Week - Comments: Read the First Comment

Learning to Make Games: Putting in the Time

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 21, 2014

My dad used to joke about how he’d bought all this exercise equipment but it hadn’t helped him one bit. Then he’d say something like, “I’m going to try using some of it now, and see if that makes a difference.” Yeah, it was a lame joke. But I sometimes get into that mentality, too. […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Geek Life, Music, Production - Comments: Read the First Comment

Game Development: Looking at Hard Numbers is Hard

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 16, 2014

How much does it cost to make a mainstream video game? Kataku mines out a few numbers. I remember being told that our games at Singletrac cost closer to $1.5 million to make… but that may have been in the Twisted Metal 2 era. Jaffe would know better than me, as he was one of […]

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



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