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Historians discuss Assassin's Creed II
Historians Bob Whitaker and Anne Proctor consider Assassin's Creed II. Topics include Renaissance Florence, the Medici family, Leonardo da Vinci, popular historical fiction, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Jan. 2, 2020
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On the Uncharted Waters of Procedural Narratives 2
Our friends spent five weeks freezing on a boat to Antarctica, and we used his experience to design a documentary, procedural narrative in Wanderlust Travel Stories.
Jan. 2, 2020
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Video Game Deep Cuts: Anchors, Glitches & Unknown Pleasures 2
The latest highlights include a piece on knowing your game's 'anchor' (as opposed to hook), the best video game glitches of the year, and a piece on the man who made the original Wolfenstein, as well as plenty more year/decade round-ups, of course.
Dec. 28, 2019
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Why Your Game Content Is Not Scaling
Do you have a Christmas present for your players? Well, just make sure it's not a memory crash. Those happen when greedily using countless assets from the store. Don't dump the assets, just adopt a clever strategy with Unity Addressables Prefabs.
Dec. 27, 2019
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Kliuless #63: The Loyalty Economy
Each week I compile a gaming industry insights newsletter that I publish broadly. Opinions are mine.
Dec. 23, 2019
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Video Game Deep Cuts: 2019's Best Best Best Best & Other Animals 2
The latest highlights include yet more best-of lists, both for 2019 and for the whole decade in a couple of cases - as well as neat pieces on hypercasual, Trico, video game cookbooks, creepy collectibles, & tonnes more.
Dec. 21, 2019
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Ethics in the Videogame Industry: A Mythbusting and Scientific Approach
This article offers a perspective on ethics in the game industry from a cognitive science standpoint, while debunking certain claims. Addiction (and attention economy), loot boxes, dark patterns, and violence are discussed.
Dec. 20, 2019
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Engaging Level Design for Combat - Pt 3
The final part to the series where I break down a combat level I designed and explain what tools you can use to keep your combat levels engaging
Dec. 18, 2019
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Procedural texturing for hand-painted stylized character pipelines
This article is about my research into procedural texturing pipelines that can achieve a hand-painted look, compared to the typical application of proceduralism for texturing that focuses on creating realistic effects.
Dec. 18, 2019
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Epic Games' attempt to go fee-free on Google Play indicates disappointing Android performance
In December 2019, Epic submitted Fortnite to be listed on the Play Store, on the condition that it could use its own payment platform and be exempt from Google’s 30 percent fee. Its submission was rejected by Google. What does this move suggest?
Dec. 17, 2019
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The mighty MMM concept in hyper-casual game design
This article discusses an approach to make more interesting and pleasurable hyper-casual games. The aim is to achieve both higher retention rates and lower CPI numbers for hyper-casual games.
Dec. 17, 2019
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How do we improve resource harvesting in Real Time Strategy games?
Resourcing is one of the core pillars of the strategy genre. If we're talking about this fundamental piece of the RTS puzzle, it makes sense to try to do it right and to make it an enjoyable and interesting part of the game.
Dec. 17, 2019