In the beginning, there was the quarter. The business model of the arcade inspired games that were designed to vacuum up the most quarters per hour.  Simple economics and self-interest of the gamemaker: Keep the player entertained, but also keep him dropping the quarters into a slot as often as possible. The “virtual death drive” [...]

One thing I didn’t mention a couple weeks ago when talking about what game designers can do better with difficulty is: let the player adjust his game difficulty after he plays. Why should we presume as game designers that our definition of “medium” or “normal” is the same one that the player is ready for. [...]

Painful lessons seem to be the ones that teach the most, whatever the subject. Pain provides motivation to find a path that leads to success. I remember the first time I waved a bat as a baseball sailed on by. It was an ugly swing. And my coach let me hear it, in front of [...]

If you haven’t played it, inFamous is a platform-shooter. It replaces firearms with electic powers that are indistinguishable from shooter gameplay, right down to the controls. So it’s Crackdown on the PS3 with updated art, though the art does not approach the best graphics that the PS3 we’ve seen. I like the comic book-style cinematics, [...]

First blogging away from home. All two miles of distance. My best session today was ten sessions long. The problem with GDC is that, even when you know the speaker and the topic, sometimes you don’t get you what you’re looking for. Or the speaker has a bad day, whatever. What’s one answer to that? [...]