The Ol’ Kickstarter Shuffle…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 31, 2013

Since the Red Baron Kickstarter campaign didn’t have such an auspicious start (mainly because of the lack of pre-KS marketing, IMO), Mad Otter Games has decided to cancel it… with full intentions to bring it back in the not-too-distant future, with a better, more finely-tuned campaign. It’s the way of things these days, I guess. […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Multiplayer Only? Nevermind.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 30, 2013

I did it again. I bought an indie game because of a steep discount without looking too closely at its description. No single-player mode. You know what this means? It means I am never, ever going to play it. I may look at it, analyze it a little bit to see what the developers did […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

2013 Halloween Game Sales!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 29, 2013

If you want to try out some horror (hopefully not horrible) indie games, you’ve got a good opportunity starting today. Desura.com is having a 7 Days of Horror Sale, through November 5th, with different games getting discounted up to 75% per day. Yeah. They should pay me some kind of kickback or something for this […]

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

How to Bring Back the Thrill of Air Combat Simulation

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 28, 2013

I was excited to hear that Damon Slye was back into videogame development, and I even played a little bit of Ace of Aces, a game that he and his company released through the now-defunct InstantAction.com. His newest project has me even more excited, though. Once again, it is a flight sim –  Red Baron, […]

Filed Under: Flight Sims - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Frayed Knights: Dungeon Creation Rules, Part 2

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 25, 2013

After our bit discussing general guiding principles for creating adventures in Frayed Knights, I’m now knee-deep in discussing detailed rules (well, okay, still guidelines) that I use for map-building. While not hard-and-fast, they do have explicit requirements that we’re trying to follow. While I wrote this document for the benefit of people helping me with […]

Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Challenge: A 3D Modeling Tool for 2.5D RPGs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 24, 2013

Yeah, I *wish* I could participate. I suck at making tools, and I’m behind schedule as it is. But I love this idea, and I hope somebody (maybe even somebody from this community) rises to the challenge… Daniel Cook (DanC) has issued a challenge to make a 3D modeling tool for creating content for 2.5D […]

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Procedural Everything

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 23, 2013

I have a love-hate relationship with procedurally generated content. One of the very first CRPGs I ever played was Telengard, by Daniel Lawrence. This was one of those formative experiences with procedural content. In effect, this gargantuan dungeon that would have consumed several megabytes with traditional storage was packed into a 64k computer (really 48k […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Jeff Atwood Revisits Masters of Doom

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 22, 2013

Somebody lost my original copy of Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, so I was forced to buy another copy. Forced, because that’s a book I feel belongs in my permanent library. In fact, I think it is mandatory reading for any indie game developer (or aspiring indie). […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Indie Evangelism, Retro - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Selling Incomplete Games

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 21, 2013

Games released in what customers consider an unfinished state is nothing new. Some more picky customers are quick to declare any game with flaws (and that would be… hmmm… all of them) “unfinished” out of some view that imperfection means it wasn’t cooked long enough. However, there are many games that a more reasonable majority […]

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Frayed Knights: Dungeon Creation Rules, Part 1

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 18, 2013

At one point, I decided to document the things that I thought made up the “secret sauce” (not much of a secret now, is it?) that I thought gave Frayed Knights its flavor. I also wanted to make a checklist for quality and help certain other people I’ve contracted to help make content for the […]

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

RPG Design: Expendable!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 17, 2013

One of the issues that I face when playing any RPG – computer, dice & paper, whatever – is my tendency to hoard expendable items. Expendable items (AKA consumables) are those things that can get “used up.” Potions, magic items with charges, scrolls, etc. Often, at the end of a game, my level 60 character […]

Filed Under: Design, Frayed Knights - Comments: 30 Comments to Read

Gal Civ III!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 16, 2013

Oh, crap. I can see a month-long end to any and all productivity on the distant horizon. Galactic Civilizations III has been announced. Yeah. I still have to be very careful about loading up Gal Civ 2. I can say to myself, “Wow, I want to really sink my teeth into a turn-based strategy game […]

Filed Under: Strategy Games - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Quickie Scary Movie Reviews

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 15, 2013

Every year, my wife and I watch a bunch of scary movies for October. It started as an attempt to cover as many of the creepy classics as possible. There’s a lot that we don’t like: excessive gore, the trend towards torture movies, slasher flicks, etc. Not our thing. What we like best is ghost […]

Filed Under: Movies - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Indie Games – Gone Mainstream?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 14, 2013

I still think of indie games as the underdog. Taken individually, any indie game not named Minecraft can probably be described as such. Collectively, however, indie games have become a force to reckon with in the industry.  I don’t know that I’d yet describe them as “mainstream,” as Polygon does, but they do talk about the […]

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Gabriel Knight Returns!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 11, 2013

Okay, this news makes me pretty happy… Gabriel Knight 20th Anniversary Remake Sounds like they are giving it a similar treatment to the Special Editions of the first two Monkey Island games. With Jane Jensen herself at the helm… it sounds like it has some serious potential. So if you aren’t familiar with the series […]

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

Good to be back home

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 10, 2013

I’ve been home from my trip for a few days. I’m really, really glad to be back home. How glad? Well, let’s talk about where I was last week. One week ago today, I found myself sitting in a 4-wheeled vehicle on the opposite side of the Earth flanked by an armed police escort, racing […]

Filed Under: General - Comments: 6 Comments to Read



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