The “I Made This” Bias

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 30, 2015

Frayed Knights 2 has elevators. Not many, as it’s a medieval fantasy game, so I don’t want to go overboard with them. They’d require either sophisticated engineering or sophisticated wizardry to operate, and not many areas warrant that. I wrote some classes and scripts which makes it easy to add an elevator and controls to the […]

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

Massive Xchyler Publishing EBook Sale

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 27, 2015

I believe this is the first time they’ve done this, but Xchyler Publishing is discounting *everything* for this weekend for the Kindle editions… starting today (so-called “Black Friday”) through Monday (“Cyber Monday”). That includes the most recent anthology, Beyond the Wail, which includes one of my stories. I also have stories in two steampunk anthologies, […]

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

Why be Thankful?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 26, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving! For those not in the U.S. – Happy Thursday! Today is a day of gratitude here in the U.S., and I’ve got a lot to be grateful for. It’s also a nice little vacation. My eldest daughter is home this weekend from school, which is awesome. And what does she want to do […]

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The Steam Fall Sale Has Begun

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 25, 2015

Oh, snap! The Steam Store Kiss your wallet goodbye. Again. Note that there’s no special daily deals offered this time around. Just one big happy sale for a few days. Oh, and BTW…. Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon is discounted.  

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Frayed Knights: Building Dungeons

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 24, 2015

I’m in the middle of building dungeons for Frayed Knights 2: The Khan of Wrath. I stress over this. A lot. Way more than I should. You’d think that after decades of being a dice & paper game master making adventures, playing lots of CRPGs, decades of game design and development, and a full-fledged award-winning RPG […]

Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

20 Classic CRPGs Every Designer Should Play

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 23, 2015

Gamasutra reposted (re-advertised?) a classic but excellent article about 20 essential computer role-playing games (and a bonus non-computerized game) that every game designer (particularly RPG designers) should play. Game Design Essentials: 20 RPGs If you haven’t read it yet, or are just idly curious, the games are: Dungeons & Dragons (tabletop), Wizardry, Ultima, Wasteland, the […]

Filed Under: Design, Retro - Comments: Comments are off for this article

International Game Day Event at the Viridian

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 20, 2015

Another one for Utah locals. I won’t be at this one, but many of my fellow indies will be. Tomorrow is International Game Day at the Viridian Events Center in West Jordan, Utah. While board games are a focus, it’s not exclusive: “International Games Day is Saturday, November 21st from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm […]

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Virtual Reality Horror and the Potential for Subtlety

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 19, 2015

With consumer Virtual Reality on the horizon, PEGI is considering changing its rating systems to handle VR horror. The reason? Horror in VR is likely to far more intense than horror on a wide-screen video game (which is, in turn, more intense than horror in a movie). Based on my limited VR experience, I’d assume […]

Filed Under: Indie Horror Games, Virtual Reality - Comments: Read the First Comment

Retro-Reading: Pulp Fiction and Fish Men of Venus

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 18, 2015

When I saw the April 1940 cover over at the Amazing Stories magazine digital archive, I had to read it. “Fish Men of Venus.” How could I not? It’s like Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder, but in short-story form. And considering my mood over the weekend, I really needed a story about fish-men from Venus. […]

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Rocksmith: Bachsmith II

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 17, 2015

You’ve probably heard me raving about Rockmith 2014 before, and are probably either sick of it or maybe you already play it. Anyway – it’s cool, I’m still playing, and still improving.  Not as much as I’d like, but then, I’m not putting in more than about a half-hour a day into it, either. But […]

Filed Under: Guitar Games - Comments: Comments are off for this article

RPG Design: The More You Know, the More You Know to Zip It

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 16, 2015

I was a lot more opinionated about RPG design a few years ago. I talked a lot more about experimental design ideas, pushed a lot more concepts that really went far outside the bounds (well, I thought they did, anyway) of conventional design. I’ve come to realize I don’t do that so much these days. […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

The Void: Welcome to the Future

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 13, 2015

“We played the VR game Dactyl Nightmare back in the 90’s,” I tell the girl who is helping us suit up. “It made us sick.” “That won’t happen now,” she says, and then corrects herself. “I won’t say it never happens, but it almost never happens. This is very different, and it isn’t even the […]

Filed Under: Geek Life, General, Impressions, Tech - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

RPG Design: Level-Limited Loot

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 12, 2015

In principle, for single-player role-playing games, I’m against the idea of having level minimums on items. This is a thing that came up in multiplayer CRPGs years ago, primarily because experienced players could “twink” a lower-level character with their high-level hand-me-downs and completely wreck the math and balance for the less experienced character. That’s a […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Fallout What?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 11, 2015

I’m not playing Fallout 4. I haven’t even bought it. I’ve not bought The Witcher 3, either. For the same reasons. Mainly: They will be my reward for shipping Frayed Knights 2. I know me. I know I will binge-play these games for 100+ hours, and I cannot afford that time right now. Especially since […]

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The Twilight Zone Influence

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 10, 2015

Over the weekend, at the Local Authors & You event, I chatted with author David West for a few minutes. We’d been on the same row at Comic Con a couple of months ago. He also writes some cool, weird stories running across several subgenres of speculative fiction. (His latest anthology was just released a […]

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The Value of “Exposure”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 9, 2015

Wil Wheaton’s recent blog post on the value of “exposure” has brought a matter to popular discussion which has already been making the rounds for a bit: the use of “exposure” as compensation. In this case, it’s probably one of the more egregious abuses recently: An extremely popular and highly-valued, presumably quite profitable site – trying […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: Read the First Comment



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