a videogame design blog
After tackling Random Encounters, I figured it’d be interesting to take a look at the other side of the coin — Field Encounters. While Random Encounters were a standard in the era of 2D, plenty of games at least experimented with a different approach. Early JRPGs such as Final Fantasy featured some visible NPCs that […]
Random encounters are a very contentious subject in JRPGs. Fans often brand it as a relic from the past, but some have a fondness for how it separates combat from exploration and creates a sense of surprise. There hasn’t been a whole lot of effort dedicated to improving random encounters, but they have slowly changed […]
Introduction Following an era where the PSX reigned supreme, the 6th console generation got a significant hardware upgrade with more storage space, larger resolutions, higher poly counts, etc. The extra horsepower allowed for many genres to better realize their settings and mechanics, and JRPGs were no exception. Real-time combat was no longer limited to the […]
Introduction In the previous entry, I analyzed ten notable turn-based JRPGs from the 16-bit era. Each title was measured on how long it took to reach 12 different milestones common to the genre. My goal was to help quantify the amount of time required to “get into” these games by obtaining a certain level of […]
Introduction Having grown up with JRPGs, it’s somewhat surprising how rarely I play them these days. That desire for a wondrous epic is still there, but pursuing new titles usually results in a feeling of slogging through manufactured bloat. The introductory segments are often filled with painfully-gated progression, overenthusiastic tutorials, and a juvenile narrative. In the […]
Introduction When Sonic the Hedgehog was first released, the game was marketed as a speedy anti-Mario. Instead of slowly plodding through small, geometric levels, Sonic blazed up and down rolling hills in large, open areas. Speed wasn’t just a shallow thrill either as the game did a great job of encouraging players to move forward: The […]
Call of the Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth took a long time to develop. When it was finally released, its insanity mechanic and physics engine were no longer novelties, its visuals looked dated, and its feeble gunplay and frustrating stealth left FPS fans largely dissatisfied. The adventuring elements stood out among the genre, though, […]
Introduction Diablo is one of the most critically and commercially acclaimed videogame franchises of all time. It has spawned numerous “clones,” and its gameplay conventions have been adapted across multiple genres. The latest entry in the series, Diablo III, boasts the honour of being the fastest selling PC game of all time and the best selling PC […]
I’ll be doing a talk at the Montreal International Game Summit this November. The topic will be Incubator Games’ recent iOS puzzler Feeding Time and its visual evolution: What is Feeding Time FT Art 1 – Animals FT Art 2 – Backgrounds FT Art 3 – UI FT Art 4 – Animations FT Art 5 […]
Loose threads and general vagueness are often poor crutches in storytelling. These aspects tend to be weird for the sake of being weird, or serve as token springboards for potential sequels, or — worse yet — are indicative of the creator(s)’s lack of a narrative plan, e.g., Lost. Mystery is inherently alluring, though, and it […]