I’m launching a public beta test of my thesis game, Wasteworld. In the interest of ensuring a whole experience, I will not describe the game beyond saying that it’s a 4X game for Facebook where you try to build a corporate empire. The rest I’ll leave to the game itselfto explain, since that’s how it [...]
My thesis game has been live in closed beta for almost two weeks now, and I’m making a final push this week to clear up the last of the bugs and launch the public beta over the weekend. watch this space for information.
As the first trial run of the game draws to a close, I [...]
I have heard it said that making 80% of a game is easy. It’s that last 20% that’ll kill you. I’ve been crunching all since Thursday on my thesis game, trying to get it live and still have enough time to analyze play and gather data for the paper before the quarter ends. After the [...]
Just returned from my sojourn in northern New Hampshire and my working vacation from all things game-related to my university, SCAD, for one last quarter. When I enrolled as a MFA candidate, I was assigned three preliminary undergraduate courses to complete before I could commence graduate study — this because my undergrad experience featured precious [...]
I have occasionally thought that pursuing an advanced degree is a bit like playing a game… a massive, cumbersome, complex game. Maybe that’s a sign I think about games too much Recently, I had a rude awakening regarding the structure of this game I’m playing: they changed the rules on me. Rather, the rules [...]
“It’s not a mistake, it’s an iteration. I’m a game designer — everything I say is a prototype.”
- Brenda Brathwaite
[Warning: Rant Forthcoming] The extra credit assignment I posted last week was a mysteriously unqualified failure. Not a single student submitted a ruleset. When discussing this with Brenda, we were both scratching our heads to try and understand why no one bothered even to submit a half-assed idea. All I asked for was two typed [...]
This challenge is for students in Brenda’s current Game Design Criticism and Analysis class, but if any non-SCAD readers feel particularly inspired, you’re welcome to post your ideas to this topic.
Task: Reinvent Chess
Description: For this project, you must write a ruleset for a new board game that only uses chess paraphernalia. This is not a [...]
Hot on the heels of a most successful conference were the awards for Entelechy, SCAD’s annual interactive design and game development departmental showcase and competition. It is open to all students at SCAD to submit their best work in a variety of categories, including: digital game, character modeling, concept art, environment/level design, paper/board game, card [...]
Today I head out for Atlanta to visit the SCAD campus there and attend GDX - the Game Developer’s Exchange, SCAD’s own micro-game developer conference. I very much enjoyed the conference last year — meeting interesting and unique people like Don Daglow, Marc Mencher, and Davey Jackson. This year we have an equally impressive crowd [...]