Game Development Quote of the Week: Markus “Notch” Persson

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 29, 2013

I changed the title from last week’s “Game Design Quote of the Week” to “Game Development Quote of the Week” Because as important as design is, it’s only part of the equation. This one comes from the fedora’d one, Markus “Notch” Persson of Minecraft fame, in an interview at Bafta Guru a couple of years […]

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 28, 2013

In the U.S., it’s Thanksgiving Day. I have a lot to be thankful for. Life is pretty good. May you have an awesome day.    

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Matt Chat Interviews Guideo Henkel

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 27, 2013

Sometimes I feel like I could just spend half my blog posts simply announcing Kickstarter RPG projects. There are a lot. Long ago, after seeing the surprising failure rate for indie game projects, I made the decision not to discuss indie games in development unless they were likely to actually be released, which meant they […]

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White Water Rafting vs. The Amusement Park

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 26, 2013

As a teenager one summer, I went whitewater rafting down the lower New River in West Virginia. Several class 4+ rapids, and tons of lower ranking rapids in about a 14 mile stretch. It remains one of the the coolest memories ever. It was exhilarating and exhausting. There were times where the water felt like […]

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The Indie Roadmap

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 25, 2013

What does it take to make an indie game? How do you begin? How do you know your idea holds water and is on schedule? Here’s a suggestion from Cedric Guillemet: The Indie Roadmap Now, obviously, there is no “one, true way” to making a game. But this is a good “average” case and warns […]

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Frayed Knights: Dungeon Creation Rules, Part 4

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 22, 2013

Wow. I’ve been doing these little Dungeon Creation notes for a long time! Now, we are finally at the end of my little list of dungeon creation rules and guidelines for Frayed Knights. These began life as part of a design document (design principles), both to keep myself oriented as I’m developing content, and for […]

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Game Design Quote of the Week – Calvin French (“The Real Texas”)

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 21, 2013

“Creating dungeons or levels is quite hard. In particular, it’s hard to know where to begin. What I do to get started is I try to hold to a certain constraint which is that map areas (including dungeons or levels) should exist geographically first. It should have an ostensible purpose outside the confines of the […]

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Ghost Town of Norrath Pt 3 – Design Thoughts

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 20, 2013

This is the conclusion of a three-part series. You can read part 1 here, and part 2 here. All-in-all, it’s pretty remarkable that EverQuest is still running today. While it’s far removed from its heyday, the fact that it’s still around – running under a different monetization plan than originally envisioned, and in an era […]

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Ghost Town of Norrath pt 2

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 19, 2013

So, as I promised in yesterday’s post, here are some thoughts on the changes that have been made to EverQuest over the years to keep it (at least minimally) viable while numerous competitors have come – and in  competition has grown, and in some cases become nothing but a memory. The trend, as things progress […]

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Ghost Town of Norrath, Part 1

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 18, 2013

So a few weeks ago, I did the unthinkable. After nearly a decade, I reinstalled EverQuest. The original. Well, “reinstalled” is perhaps the wrong term. My original discs were not used. As the game has gone “free to play,” I just installed the new client. I doubt that my old account is available anymore (any […]

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Clockwork Empires Teaser

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 15, 2013

City-building (they claim inspiration from Dwarf Fortress), Steampunk, and a dose of Lovecraft-style horror all mixed together in one game, by the makers of Dungeons of Dredmor? Yeah, count me in. I’ve been hearing about this game for a while (like, since they first announced it), but I finally saw the trailer… With so many […]

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Unity 3D: Now in TWO Dimensions!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 14, 2013

It’s kinda funny how Unity 3D has now made such an effort to support 2D gaming. But this week, 4.3 released, with a whole bunch of 2D tools in an ongoing effort to make the engine more universally useful to game developers – particularly the indies. Here are the changes for Unity 4.3 It’s a […]

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Heading For Another Video Game Crash?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 13, 2013

Sounds like some folks are predicting it over at GamesIndustry.biz. I dunno. If I was a console manufacturer, I might be nervous. If I was primarily a publisher of high-end console games, I might be nervous. While I was too young to really understand the North American 1983 video game crash, I can probably draw […]

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Frayed Knights: Dungeon Creation Rules, Part 3

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 12, 2013

Time for another installment of the Frayed Knights dungeon creation “rules.” These began life as part of a design document (design principles), both to keep myself oriented as I’m developing content, and for those who may be assisting me. I copy (most) of them here so that you can know more about where Frayed Knights […]

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Finding Your Indie Rhythm

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 11, 2013

To be completely honest, I’m not sure how successful I’d be right now as a full-time indie. I still struggle with schedule. I struggle with my rhythm. I usually find an awesome (but exhausting) pace towards the end of a project, but it is a little too crazy to sustain it all the time. I […]

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Deathfire Kickstarter Now Live

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 8, 2013

Since we’ve talked about it, and I’m personally very excited about it: The Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore Kickstarter campaign is now live. I signed up within the first few minutes, actually. But that’s me. This is the kind of game I make (oooh, terrible, the competition!). It’s the kind of game I make because I […]

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