After an epic struggle with severe food poisoning, I’ve finally gotten time to set up my podcast feed. I’ll be posting episodes of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, where I talk about applying game design techniques to the challenge of creating an incredible RPG adventure. Now with online hosting! So you won’t have to download future […]

The first episode of the Dungeon Master’s Guide is up on Remaking Magic’s hosting. This weekend I also recorded the raw footage of the first five episodes of a new youtube series with my friend Gabe. We’ll be playing great videogames and talking about their design. It’s awesome. The first episode should be up sometime early next […]

My latest Design 101 is up. It’s about playtesting this time. Sounds simple, right? Don’t you just play the game and see what happens? Not if you want to do it well. You can find the full article here: Design 101: Playtesting.

Hey everyone, I’ve decided to start a second weekly podcast in addition to my Remaking Magic series with Reuben Covington. This one will feature Tabletop RPGs, which are basically the fruit fly science of game design. You can build and test hours of content so quickly, it’s an amazing place to improve your craft. If […]

The success of Undertale has gotten the gaming community talking about alternatives to solving problems with violence. Considering the legacy of point and click adventure games, visual novels, puzzle games, comedy titles (like Stanley Parable), experiences such as Journey and Flower and more – it seems like a strange epiphany to have here. It’s still […]

Welcome! Welcome back to Design 101. Last time we talked about how the same simple Event Structure supports thousands of great games. If you missed out any of the previous articles, you’ll be able to find the archives at the bottom of this piece. Today we’re going to be talking about Emotional Alignment. This concept […]

My latest Design 101 article was just published, and featured, on Gamasutra. If you aren’t regularly reading that site, you definitely should. It’s one of the best in the industry when it comes to keeping up with game design and development.

Welcome! Welcome back to Design 101. Last time we talked about one of the most controversial topics in game design, Complexity vs. Depth. If you missed out on that, or any of the previous articles, you’ll be able to find the table of contents at the bottom of this piece.   Today we’re going to […]

Welcome! Welcome back to Design 101 If you missed the first installment, you can check it out here. Today we’re going to talk about one of the most controversial topics in game design: Complexity. Since time immemorial, arguments about this subject have raged through design teams and gamer communities alike. Does removing complexity “dumb down” […]

I just published an article on MTG Salvation, introducing a new way to play Magic: the Gathering. It’s not just a new format, it’s basically like an entirely new game you can play with the cards you already own (assuming you’re a Magic fan of course). You can read the article here.