Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Indie Studio of the Living Dead

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 28, 2014

While I sometimes wish I could be one of those total coding animals – the ones who can just go for 16+ hours with hardly a break – I don’t know if I’d want the kind of personality that would allow that. Coming off of an intense 10-hour workday, with a break for dinner, and […]


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



RPG Design: The Positive Potential of Potions

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 27, 2014

About ten months ago, I wrote about consumable / expendable resources in RPGs. More recently, Matt Barton penned an article about how much he wants to get rid of consumable items altogether in “Down with Pots!” Well, I’m gonna answer both him and my younger self. At least in part. Actually, I’m gonna write three answers […]


Filed Under: Design - Comments: 11 Comments to Read



Utah Game Jam

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 20, 2014

On Friday September 12th through Sunday the 14th, game-makers of all stripes in the Salt Lake area are invited to the Utah Indie Game Jam. There’s more information at the site. Note that board game developers are invited as well… it’s not just about game controllers and real-time graphics. If interested, please register, as space […]


Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: Read the First Comment



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 […]


Filed Under: Production - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



Black Triangles

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 12, 2014

One of my most popular posts was also my very first… which has since been lost to the Great Blog Devouring of ’14. So…  here’s the post from over ten years ago (has it been that long?!?!?!) about an event from almost twenty years ago. Still stuff I have to remind myself about some days. […]


Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



Game Development: Rolling Your Own Engine?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 11, 2014

This weekend in the indie game developers group on Facebook, a vocal minority (very much a minority) ventured “opinions” disparaging developers who don’t build their own game engine from scratch. The predictable crapstorm ensued. Mainly it was troll-feeding and simply fun to pile on, as these Internet arguments often go. Now, ignoring for the moment […]


Filed Under: Programming - Comments: 7 Comments to Read



The Pros and Cons of Making Games with GameMaker

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 7, 2014

PC Gamer’s recent article, “No coding required: How new designers are using GameMaker to create indie smash hits” was pretty enjoyable and seemed reasonably accurate – even if its headline is a bit misleading. Part of the reason I picked up GameMaker several months ago and wrote a little arcade game in it was because […]


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



Computer RPGs and the Game Controller

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 29, 2014

I love my keyboard and mouse for gaming. Before mice were common, I loved the keyboard. I remember playing Ultima III and IV, where there was a command for almost every key. It seems a silly idea today, but back then, it at least made the game feel like it was incredibly interactive. Look at […]


Filed Under: Design, Frayed Knights - Comments: 17 Comments to Read



Beware the Idea Fairy

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 9, 2014

I just discovered theMeatly.com last night. Maybe it was the caffeine talking, but I was literally laughing out loud at many of the panels. Especially this one. If you are an indie game developer, this is probably the story of your life. Every. Day. I’ve taken to just writing the dang things down – writing […]


Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



Playing Bad Games…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 8, 2014

Across the street… a neon sign. “All you can eat for a dollar ninety-nine. Our soul stew is the baddest in the land.” But uh, one dollar’s worth was all that I could stand. — Huey Lewis and the News, “Sometimes Bad is Bad.” It’s often easier to figure out what has been done wrong than […]


Filed Under: Design - Comments: Read the First Comment



Pixels 4Ever?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 7, 2014

Old-school bitmap art can be pretty dang awesome. Like this, from the incredibly cool arcade-style freeware game Maldita Castilla, by Locomalito Games. Check it out – it’s freeware. Tip the creator with the number of quarters you would have dumped into this game if it had been in an arcade machine: My kids and I thoroughly […]


Filed Under: Art - Comments: 6 Comments to Read



The Game that Changed Everything

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 30, 2014

I spent a little bit of time playing Doom this weekend. Yes, twenty-year old Doom. Updated a little bit with some new technology to take advantage of modern hardware and to make it nicely mouse-playable and everything, but it was still the same game. Running in Doomsday with a fan-made high-quality texture pack. There are […]


Filed Under: Design, Retro - Comments: 10 Comments to Read



What Game Design Mojo?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 27, 2014

When I first started in the video game business (and I’m kind of afraid to mention when that was anymore), I was pretty sure of myself. I knew games. I knew what was fun. I was a frickin’ gaming genius. That didn’t last long. I blame Dunning-Kruger. The more professional game designers I spoke with, […]


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



RPG Design: Getting In Over Your Head

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 24, 2014

When I was a kid, I dreamed about a computer RPG that (in my dream) was completely awesome. Amusingly, although the end of the dream was more like a live-action adventure, the first half of the game in my dream was probably closer to something like the early Ultima games. Setting forth from the first […]


Filed Under: Design - Comments: 6 Comments to Read



Design: Exploration Rewards and Side Quests

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 23, 2014

My favorite Android game right now is Catan. That’s not saying much – I don’t play many Android games. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s also one of my favorite board games. Still. My favorite mode is one that comes with the Seafarers expansion called “Fog Islands.” It’s got all the fun stuff that comes with the […]


Filed Under: Design - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



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



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