Guest Post: Are Games Art?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 29, 2011

Today’s guest post comes from Travis Bassett, of the new website PC RPG News.  Travis tackles the thorny issue of whether or not games are art. Travis takes a thoughtfully subjective approach, one I don’t feel I can refute. If a game truly moves and inspires you, does it really matter if some ivory tower […]

Filed Under: Guest Posts - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

The Story Behind “The Rainstorm”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 28, 2011

Today’s guest post comes from fellow Utah indie J. Alan Atherton. I’m fond of this particular story as it involves one indie’s crusade to actually ship a title. And he did. Plus, this post comes with a new game you can play! What’s not to like? So here’s Alan: The story behind how a game […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Guest Posts, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

“Kivi Was a Mistake”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 27, 2011

Steven Peeler of Soldak Entertainment writes a long-overdue postmortem on their more casual-friendly RPG, Kivi’s Underworld. Which is, incidentally, marked down to only $9.99 – and Depths of Peril is down to only $14.99 – though I won’t have the new prices up on the website until I return home. Anyway, here’s the postmortem – […]

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Guest Post: The Roguelikes, Part 1

Posted by Rampant Coyote on

All I can say is, “Holy cow!” Brian Critser, AKA Skavenhorde, turned a quick research into roguelikes for a guest post into nearly a Master’s Thesis. It’s awesome. And it’s good for multiple post, the next one arriving hopefully next week. Well worth the read, even if (or especially if) you aren’t all that much […]

Filed Under: Free Games, Guest Posts, Roguelikes - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

Guest Post: Lessons I Learned While Working at Bioware

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 26, 2011

The Rampant One is off running rampant in New Orleans, and while I’m away, the community gets to play. Actually, they can play any time they want – I love to add extra voices here to Tales of the Rampant Coyote. Today’s post is a wonderful bit of insight from a man who’s been in […]

Filed Under: Biz, Game Development, Guest Posts - Comments: 25 Comments to Read

Frayed Knights Update: How Buggy Can You Get?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 25, 2011

As I’m about to take a few days off from both the day job and Frayed Knights development, I figured it was time for another update on this tongue-in-cheek indie RPG which I at one point imagined would be a “quick and dirty” project capable of being completed in “only a few months.” If all […]

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Scars of War Development On Hiatus

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 22, 2011

Gareth hinted that this might be coming for some time, but now it’s official… Gareth Fouche Going Full-Time Indie, Pausing Development of Scars of War It’s disappointing that Scars of War is going to be further delayed. And, let’s be honest here, there’s a very definite chance we won’t see it at all.  But, by […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Preview of Avadon: The Black Fortress

Posted by Rampant Coyote on

Okay, Mac owners may continue their gloating, as this indie RPG is old news for them.  But Windows RPG fans can read this preview of the upcoming Windows port of the first game in Spiderweb’s new RPG series, Avadon, provided by Brother None at GameBanshee… Avadon: The Black Fortress Preview The game is still slated […]

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Jousting Competition in Texas

Posted by Rampant Coyote on

Hey, if you happen to live near Austin, Texas, there’s a pretty massive three-day jousting competition going on near you in about a week. I don’t, but if I did, I’d be going: “Lysts on the Lake” Jousting Competition, April 29th – May 1st. I’ve seen a few real jousts before, though never a full […]

Filed Under: General - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Matt Chat Interview with Scott Miller

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 21, 2011

If you don’t know who shareware pioneer and long-time game entrepreneur Scott Miller is, you should definitely watch this interview. And if you do know who Scott Miller is, then you should watch this interview … uh… even more definitely. Yeah, okay. It’s just good. For those who don’t know: Think Apogee Software, 3D Realms… […]

Filed Under: Interviews - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

The Impact of Magic on Fantasy Worlds

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 20, 2011

Fantasy worlds rarely take into consideration the full ramifications of the effect of magic in the game world. It’s probably easiest to take the approach that magic is rare enough (player-run magic users notwithstanding) that the effect is minimal on the fictional world that it might still resemble our own. But would it? Imagine a […]

Filed Under: General - Comments: 20 Comments to Read

How to Start an Adventure

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 19, 2011

Back in the heyday of dice-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons, it became somewhat cliché for adventuring parties to begin their big adventure together in a tavern.  It was easy for the Dungeon Master to set up – some bold adventuresome sorts are lifting a pint and being more sociable with strangers than one would expect in […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 25 Comments to Read

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

Vacation Coming Up – Guest Posts Requested

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 15, 2011

I’m going on vacation to play tourist in New Orleans in a little over a week. While I always welcome guest blog posts, this is really the time when I may be able to use them the most. If you have something on the topic of indie games, RPGs, adventure games, the games biz, or… […]

Filed Under: General - Comments: 3 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

Fan Remakes: Don’t.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 13, 2011

I am personally a huge fan of these kinds of fan-made remakes of beloved older games, and am grateful for the efforts of the dev teams for making them. I really don’t want to be the guy to throw a wet blanket on these efforts at all, but I do feel like I should take […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 31 Comments to Read



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