Procedural Content: When it sucks, when it doesn’t

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 27, 2012

I’ve been a fan of procedural content since I first played Telengard back in 1982 or so. The Telengard dungeon boasted a size that was pretty much unattainable by conventional methods. There were a total of two million rooms in the game. Even if you managed to compress the entire room information down into a […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Going Big When You Are Small

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 22, 2012

I’ve had a few discussions with friends over the last couple of weeks about RPG design, revisiting past ideas, etc.  Those inspired yesterday’s post. And today’s post. But what really drove something home was this RPG Codex interview with gaming legend Jon Van Caneghem, creator of the Might & Magic series and founder of New […]

Filed Under: Design, Indie Evangelism, Retro - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Competing Against the Past

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 21, 2012

One of the awesome things about indies is that they are capable of revisiting genres or game styles that have long been abandoned by the industry at large. Turn-based RPGs, adventure games, 2D platformers, shoot-em-ups, space combat sims, even flight sims… these game categories are nicely represented by indies nowadays after long dormant periods. This […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Indie Game Development: Words of Discouragement?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 17, 2012

This is a sad story indeed. There are a few lessons that could be drawn from this story. One might be that nice guys finish last. These guys tried to take a different path from how they saw “predatory” in-app purchases work. And as a result, they are now broke. So one could say that […]

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

Pixel Prospector’s Big Page of Indie Resources

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 16, 2012

Not sure if I have linked to this before… but if so, it’s grown quite a bit: Indie Resources at PixelProspector There are tons and tons of articles linked there – a couple of them from Tales of the Rampant Coyote! If you are serious about making indie games, there’s plenty to find here to […]

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Why Are CRPGs So Combat-Heavy?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 15, 2012

Why don’t we have more RPGs that emphasize non-combat activities? Why wasn’t Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines able to keep up its efforts for non-combat solutions to problems, particularly in the latter part of the game? Do players tend to min-max their characters for fighting because the CRPGs emphasize it, or is it the other way […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

RPG Design: Boss Battles and the Positive Feedback Problem

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 14, 2012

In my article last week about Frayed Knights‘ problem with boss battles, I neglected to mention one other factor that worked against my poor bosses which is peculiar to the RPG genre: One of my guiding principles of the overall game design is that the game should be fully playable and of reasonable difficulty for […]

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Thirty Years and Counting…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 13, 2012

I hit a major (internal) milestone with Frayed Knights 2 on Friday. So for the weekend, I decided to celebrate by taking a break. By… working on another little “side” game project. Mostly it was an educational experience to get more familiar with NGUI for Unity – and it did enlighten me to a few […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

“I”ve Been to the Ninth Circle of Monetization Hell – It’s Called the Arcades.”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 10, 2012

Gamasutra has last year’s presentation by Mark Cerny where he talks about how the face of gaming has changed since he started as a developer in Atari’s coin-op division. And how – in his view – things still need to change: Mark Cerny – “The Long View” (Or as Gamasutra titles it, “How developers are […]

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To Grind or Not To Grind?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 8, 2012

Rowan Kaiser talks about “grinding” – an ill-defined term that generally references facing repetitive, meaningless combat encounters. ‘Grinding’ and it’s Relationship to the RPG Genre Grinding is generally a negative term, and I agree in that I dislike games where grinding is a significant source of gameplay. I remember all too well my frustration back […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Want Players to Finish the Game? Let Them Quit!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 3, 2012

There are a lot of important features to an RPG that make the experience really stand out for me. But these days, with my “grown up” schedule, the two most important features for any video game (not just RPG, but I’m focusing on RPGs here) are the following: 1. Make it easy for me to […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

Should You Have To Earn the Fun?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 30, 2012

It’s pretty classic game design, because it works: As you play, you unlock abilities, which adds to the fun. In a tower defense game, maybe you get new towers to experiment with. Or in an RTS – of which Tower Defense is a subgenre – you unlock new units and buildings as you progress. In […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

Windows 8: Sucks For Gamers?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 26, 2012

At Kotaku, Gabe Newell and Brad Wardell have some serious reservations about Windows 8 for PC gaming: Gabe Newell Wants to Support Linux Because Windows 8 is a Catastrophe Three Killer Problems that Threaten Windows 8 Newell, in particular, references the rush by Apple and Microsoft to close their platforms to competitors. In the notes […]

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 11 Comments to Read

Advancing the Role of Role-Playing – An Example Project

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 13, 2012

My big rant yesterday about improving the “role-playing” experience in computer & console RPGs seemed to strike a nerve, based on comments received on the blog, in twitter, and in emails. The gist of it was probably summed up by Justin Keverne on Twitter: “The designer in me looks at that and nods, the programmer […]

Filed Under: Design, Programming - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Advancing the Role of Role-Playing

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 12, 2012

Many years ago, I read a book entitled “Shared Fantasy,” a sociologist’s exploration of the RPG subculture – back when the hobby was new and not so much computerized. As a member of said subculture, I was a little defensive when I started reading it, but soon found that author Gary Alan Fine was pretty […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Oh, Yeah – The OUYA!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 11, 2012

It’s a new kind of video game console. Now the fastest-funding Kickstarter yet. And on track to possibly become the highest-earning Kickstarter project. Though since most of the Kickstarter donations are actually more pre-orders for the console, this may not be quite as impressive as it sounds. But still… two million dollars in 24 hours […]

Filed Under: Biz, Game Development, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 14 Comments to Read



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