Some Mainstream Games, an Indie, and a Hybrid… and Victory of the Indies

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 30, 2012

Lotsa things to cover today, so this is a topic-laden post. We’ve got a really cool tactics game on Kickstarter, the return of an RPG classic all new-and-improved, and a mainstream publisher trying to emulate the indies (!!!!). Wow. Telepath Tactics Okay, first things first – I wanna talk more about this one later, but […]

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It’s Dangerous to Go Alone!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 29, 2012

Now, as an excuse, with the Thanksgiving break over, I’ve been back to working 11-ish hour days for The Day Job, and so game development has slowed to a crawl again. Sadly, this has been the case most of this year. 2012’s been rough, but still not as bad as when I was working at […]

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Ichiro Lambe on 9 Common Indie Mistakes

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 28, 2012

Have I made every single one of these? Hmmm… No! No, I don’t think I’ve done #3 yet, at least not as an indie. But all of the rest of ’em, yeas, I think I have. Even the ones I am careful to tell other people not to make. The 9 Common Mistakes Every Indie […]

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Too Much

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 27, 2012

I picked up Dead Island during the Steam Autumn sale. I finally tried to play it. My wife was in the room. I watched part of the intro. The music and the dialog, was pretty laden with profanity. As the f-bombs continued at a rate of one every three seconds, my wife expressed disgust at the […]

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It’s All Done Except For….

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 26, 2012

A comment over the weekend led to a short conversation about where all the development time goes. I joked (though it’s not really a joke) that if I’d chosen to use a text-based interface, Frayed Knights 2 would be done by now. Lars Doucet (Defender’s Quest) and Craig Stern (Telepath RPG) and others quickly chimed […]

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Game Design: Decisions and Execution

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 23, 2012

Just some random musings for your Friday’s entertainment. I posit that “gameplay” is a combination of interesting decisions and challenging execution. In a game like Rock Band or Dance Dance Revolution, it’s almost all about the execution. You may need to consider when to go into overcharge mode, or how to move to hit those […]

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Three Days of Slinging Dice and Raising Hell, AKA Thanksgiving

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 22, 2012

While I’ve always appreciated the “giving thanks” aspect of the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S., and was never ungrateful for having the days off of school and work, I’ve not always been a fan of the holiday. When I was a kid, it was actually pretty boring, and often involved people I didn’t really […]

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Wreck-It Ralph

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 21, 2012

We finally went to see Wreck-It Ralph last night. I was told I’d love it, but seriously we haven’t had a night free in the last three weeks. It’s been that crazy here on the home front. I am utterly incapable of objectively reviewing this movie. It was like watching Tron as a kid… any […]

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GOG.COM Pick 5 Pay $10 Sale

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 20, 2012

Twenty indie games (does Alan Wake American Nightmare count as indie?). Pick 5 and pay only $10 for the lot of ’em. My problem? I already own all the games I’d be interested in. Not that I can really call that a “problem.” In college I’d dream about having that kind of problem…. GOG.COM Pick […]

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Nine Game Production Lessons Learned from the Arcades

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 19, 2012

Many game developers of the modern era have begged that the industry transcend its arcade roots. And I cannot disagree with them, as far as they go. The arcade machines were patterned after a different amusement than what games are now (or should be). The old arcade games were designed to maximize quarter revenue, for […]

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Utah Indie Night, November 2012

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 16, 2012

This month’s indie night was held at the University of Utah. I can’t say this is my favorite venue, particularly as parking is such a nightmare. But the EAE (Electronic Arts & Engineering) department was kind enough to volunteer the space, and we got a few student indies from the department joining us for the […]

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Frayed Knights 2 Update: Taking Initiative… AWAY!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 15, 2012

I guess I really am a game designer. I can’t resist the urge to tinker with game mechanics. While I’m quite proud of the old-school feel and the depth and playability of the combat system for  Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon, I am still not satisfied.  In spite of the more abstract tactics, I […]

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The Industry Is In Chaos. What Else Is New?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 14, 2012

The party is over at Zynga. THQ is having trouble paying its bills. Lawsuits are brewing over the epic collapse of 38 Studio. “Free to Play” (a triumph of marketing on par with tiny candy bars getting labeled as “Fun Size!”) is dominating the arena. Consoles are on the decline. Everybody and their cousin seems […]

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Game Design: Verb Consolidation

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 13, 2012

The text adventure genre provided a wonderful deception to a generation of gamers  – or to be honest, multiple generations, as the Interactive Fiction community still manages to provide some pretty interesting games for a niche audience. The grand illusion of text adventures – and certainly one of the things that most endeared me to […]

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We Need to Kill WHAT to Make Better Games…?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 12, 2012

I said on Twitter that there was so much wrong with this article I didn’t know where to begin. But now I’ll begin. First off, the article in question Why We Need to Kill Gameplay to Make Better Games First I’ll cover the points of agreement. The author is absolutely right when he says, “I […]

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Randomly Speaking

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 9, 2012

Craig Stern of Sinister Design had an insightful essay on randomness (or, rather, non-determinism) in games this week. I thought I’d talk about it a little bit. I’m a big fan of Go (I even dropped a serious chunk of change on Many Faces of Go – which was well worth it, IMHO). Chess a […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 10 Comments to Read



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