Gamasutra Member Blogs: From Charm To Automated Skill

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, such as finding the charm in video games, the automation of player skill, tools of a game designers, and more.] Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. This Week's Standout Member Blogs Finding The Charm (In Video Games) (Christian Arca) During game development, most developers focus on finding the fun. But what about those unique characteristics that set the game apart from hundreds of other games? Christian Arca says if we have fun during the process of game development, we will find the charm in our games. Building An Indie Studio In An Unlikely Place - Part 2 (Sergio Rosa) A few months ago, Sergio Rosa and his team opened one of the first indie game development studios in El Salvador, Latin America. Following up his first post about starting the studio, Rosa discusses some numbers and the "birth of the first project" that actually became the second. Tools of a Game Designer: What I Use And What Is Out There (Slaton White) There are a lot of ways to make games out there. In this post, Slaton White discusses what game design methods are out there and what he prefers to use. Specifically, he discusses mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics, iterative design, player empathy, target market, and testing. Logog: Logger Optimized For Games (John Byrd) Logog is a portable C++ library to facilitate logging of real-time events in performance-oriented applications, such as games. John Byrd notes that it is especially appropriate for projects that have constrained memory and constrained CPU requirements. The Automation Of Player Skill (Eric Schwarz) Here Eric Schwarz examines the various ways in which player skill can be automated or outright apprehended, and discusses why it often damages the core game experience rather than aiding it.