Beware the Elegant Design

I often talk about the importance of elegance in design. However, the most straightforward individual designs can sometimes massively complicate the overall game. Nowhere has this been more apparent to me than in studying Yu-Gi-Oh’s cardpool. Many of their cards are forced into microtext sizes with an absurd number of added effects and qualifiers. It […]

The Most Common Design Mistake

I’m back home for vacation and playing a lot of tabletop games with my friends and family. While a  lot of my friends are deep-dive hardcore gamers, my family tends to look at a tabletop and think “coffee and conversation” rather than “dungeons and dragons”. Here’s the thing: My family often enjoys games of deep […]

Why we love the Apocalypse

Someone recently asked me why game developers are obsessed with using Apocalypse settings. Are they just creatively bankrupt? Here was my answer: Apocalypse settings are the equivalent of fertile soil. They naturally lend themselves to an environment which is good for game development: 1) Few characters that you feel a desire to talk to (most […]

The Real Problem With Star Wars 7

Hating on The Force Awakens has seen a new surge with South Park comically blaming the film for all of 2016’s problems. Critics accuse the film of just being poorly repackaged nostalgia moments from A New Hope, while supporters insist the movie is a well made film that works on its own. Where does this […]

The Elegant Brilliance of Super Mario Run

Super Mario Run charged out on December 15th, three days ago as of this writing. While its sales have skyrocketed as we’d expect, the game is currently suffering a shocking 2.5 star rating. However, these low ratings mask a brilliant game. While players rightly complain about the monetization structure, always-online requirements, and other issues surrounding the […]

How to never have a balance problem

It’s very easy to make a game that never has a balance problem. I’ve done it multiple times. Heck, even back in college a team and I worked together to make a whole pen and paper RPG called Wanderlust that was so balanced the strongest characters you could create in it were only 8% more […]