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 […]

So I got a tweet over the weekend that read thusly. @DesignerDanF All I want for Christmas is to find out what happened in Ravenshadow! pic.twitter.com/oa6UeBQp5z — Alpha Bromega (@birdlikeman) December 11, 2016 So I decided to play santa. I recorded the next episode in the series the same day, which focuses on how tragedies […]

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 […]

You know the device. You start with some tense and possibly wacky scene. Then the screen fades to black and the title card pops up: “One Week Earlier”. You’re now back in a comfortable scene and wondering how on earth the strange circumstance in the opening came about. This is a great technique. It’s also […]

I recently watched the new Star Wars film for the first time since its global premiere. I remembered being favorably impressed despite its awkward conclusion at Starkiller Base. However, I also remember leaving the theater thinking, “Kylo Ren is going to get a LOT of hate.” As funny as it is to see Kylo Ren […]

There’s a saying in writing for long-running series that you should only kill off a significant character if that character’s death creates more potential for stories than that character’s life. Design space in games ripe for expansions should be treated in a similar way. For example, let’s say you make an ability that lets you […]

My Cardography Interview was just uploaded. Listen to me get grilled on common design mistakes, tricks of the trade and all sorts of design topics. Click here for the link.

My family tells a story about a meatloaf. Apparently my cousin once asked my grandmother why shy cuts the ends off the meatloaf before putting it into the oven. My aunt thought about it and said, “It’s how my mother always made it. Her meatloaf was wonderful, so there must be a reason.” When they […]

The more design you do, the more you get the joke. The more mass-produced something is, the less remarkable it seems. However, the economies of scale mean that more money is riding on its success. You can bet that more thought went into the shape of your pen’s cap than most of the final papers […]

We all see these “intelligence tests” whizzing around facebook. Naturally they’re puzzles designed to make you feel smart, like many good puzzles in games are. You feel smart, so you share the puzzle. I design puzzles as part of my job, so I thought I’d dig into the design of a recent one that showed […]