The Value of Emergent Player Narrative (part 1)
Context to a player is paramount. It informs their perspective of the game in which they should be immersed, and understanding the context of their situation leads them to ask new questions that will...
View ArticleThe Unnamed Podcast – March 25th 2013
Hosts Jon Chan and Harold Li get their feet warm in the pool by making half-assed introductions about themselves, discuss Ketzal's Corridors (3DS), Candy Crush Saga (Web/iOS), Value in Freemium Gaming,...
View ArticleThe Now-Named Unnamed Podcast – April 8th 2013
In our second episode, Harold and Jon figure out an appropriate name for the podcast, and yammer on about Far Cry 3, Need For Speed: The Run(s), Nimble Quest, and briefly debate the merits of visibly...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? … April 24th 2013 Podcast
This week, we discuss the shortcomings of Telltale's The Walking Dead from a gameplay perspective, very briefly review my first impressions of Max Payne 3 (I'm only 20 minutes in), and take you on a...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? – May 6th 2013 Podcast
We're a little late, but the podcast is finally here! In this episode, Harold and Jon catch up after a long game jam, and exhausting home renovation (respectively). We're still here. And this week we...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? Podcast – May 16th 2013
This week, we're graced by the presence of our old friend and colleague, Darin Casier, who's a UI programmer at Bioware MTL. We get into the thick of analytics in game development, why we play games,...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? Podcast – June 3rd 2013
In this episode, the duo discusses single-player co-op campaign gameplay (wut?), digitized pen & paper mobile role playing (huh?), simplified input context and cognitive relevance (wha?), and .......
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? Podcast – June 9th 2013
This week we're joined by a two special guests; one who can talk and one who can't. No, not Penn & Teller, but our good friend and colleague Jason Wilson, and a mystery observer, who touches his...
View ArticleTrends in Gaming (or ‘What Gamers Want’)
Every E3, I play a cynical game I like to call 'Spot the Game Trend', where I try to find the common ground among the newly announced titles. It's only the second day of the expo, but right now, I'm...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? – June 19th 2013
Join us this week as we stumble through a late session of Game Over! Retry?! No seriously, this week we just gargle around our E3 reactions. We tried to avoid doing a typical post-E3 news round up...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? – June 24th 2013
This week, we're joined by Animator and Artist Brian Paquette, who was an integral part of our action team back on Warriors: Legends of Troy. He brought The Last of Us for me to try, where I broke this...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? – July 3rd 2013
It's a Driver: San Francisco-heavy episode, as Harold wraps up his playthrough and poses some interesting design questions. This week, we talk about bringing context to unique game mechanics, the...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? – July 8th 2013 (Rolling Start 1)
In this episode of Game Over! Retry?, we put ourselves through a design exercise we have dubbed "Rolling Start". We discuss the conventions and understandings of Looting and MMOs, and come up with a...
View ArticleOperation: Rolling Start
Rolling Start is an exercise I designed to force me to think within a set of constraints. As a game designer, this exercise might help you think on the fly, design outside of your comfort zone, and...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? Episode 12
Trying out yet another Game Design segment this week, we chose to discuss potential sequels to Pokemon Snap, Katamari Damacy, and Fatal Frame. We debate the merits of cameras being ubiquitous in mobile...
View ArticleGame Over! Retry? Episode 13 (Word of the Day)
In Episode 13, we discuss our "Word of the Day": Achievements, which was inspired by the recently finished Steam Summer Sale, where Valve put their card achievement system into full swing. We went off...
View ArticleGOR014: Shooting the Shit w/ Adam Blanchard
We shoot the shit with the zany and intellectual Adam Blanchard, another Game Designer on the edge of the industry. In this free form episode, we discuss what we've been playing, including Reus, Alan...
View ArticleGOR015 – Not Enough Coffee
In this segment of Rolling Start, we make crazy attempts to generate concepts for a game that combines aspects of Rhythm, Deck Building, Melee, and Platforming. You decide one of those things didn't...
View ArticleGOR016 – Licensed to Sell
A Design Exercise takes a wild tangent as we and our guest Michael Surya make an attempt to discuss a Pacific Rim video game. We jump from quick opinions about Dishonored and Bioshock Infinite to...
View ArticleThe Importance of Replayability (or Replay Value) [Part 1]
You might often see game reviews rating a game on its Replay Value or Replayability, which is an attempt to quantify this notion, but ultimately the concept of value, itself, is subjective. What may be...
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