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.

The Call “Hey Dan, are you in town?” Asked Ian. “I am actually.” “Great. I need a game. I need a game bad.” “Cool. I’d like to do some sort of mini-campaign. I’d rather not do a one-shot, I’ve done a million of those, but something more like a three-episode campaign would be neat.” “Excellent. […]

Welcome! Hi, welcome to Design 101. Like many people in the industry, I get asked a lot of questions about game design. Sometimes it’s from friends, sometimes it’s from their kids, sometimes it’s even from new students of my former teachers. Lately I’ve been answering a lot of the same questions over and over again, […]

So, I run design teams as a hobby. It started in college, a way to simulate the professional production environments and practice our skills. We used to sink 30 hours a week into designing various board games, card games, tabletop rpgs and more. Now I’m in the industry and working professionally, but I still love […]

Just finished my time at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. I had an extraordinary time. I spent about half of it exhibiting for Faeria and the other half wandering the great vastness of the convention. It felt great to share the product of a year’s worth of work with so many people, […]