How Many Mechanics Should a Game Have?

There’s a reason video games build what’s called a ‘vertical slice’. If you’re not familiar, a vertical slice is a single playable area, with all mechanics, final art, vfx, sfx, music, etc. Basically, a little piece of exactly how the finished game will look and feel and play. The vertical slice is what game developers […] Source

I know a lot about guns. I’ve never held a gun. I’ve seen guns only on store walls and on the hips of officers. I’m not interested in guns. Still, I know a lot about guns because guns play a big role in many of the videogames I love. As a game designer specializing in […] Source

Some Background A few years ago I stumbled upon the amazing advertising for OmegaMart. It produced a sense of the uncanny which I found both funny and intriguing. I quickly became obsessed and learned all I could about OmegaMart and Meow Wolf, its creators. As a person who loves and seeks truly original and artistic […] Source

The first chapter of Glenn Parsons’ “The Philosophy of Design” is dedicated to the definition of the word ‘design’.* Parsons goes through many iterations, finally arriving at “Design is the intentional solution of a problem by the creation of plans for a new sort of thing…” I liked this definition at first, but began to […] Source

Allow me to start by saying that I mean no disrespect to Dialogue Trees.  I don’t think dialogue trees can or should be replaced.  They are an art form of their own — a perfect compromise among the competing forces game developers require from such a system: Easy to predict, to implement, to hook into other […] Source