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JikGuard
How commercial video games are designed to develop players' skills
Through interviews with developers behind commercial titles including Borderlands, Portal and Lara Croft, this post explores how such games are designed to exercise certain skills and competencies in players, which may also be valuable beyond the games.
Oct. 21, 2019
JikGuard
Pursuing Playability Part 1 -- Quality of Life
For this multi-part piece, we're going to be talking about how to improve playability in games, starting with quality of life features and improvements.
Oct. 21, 2019
JikGuard
Indie Postmortem: Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan (2019)
Sydney Hunter was released on the Switch and Steam, and our first game released for modern platforms. As co-owner and head of marketing, I share my experience developing this game, and how it went from going from an NES game to modern platforms.
Oct. 21, 2019
JikGuard
Video Game Deep Cuts: Fortnite's End In Jedi's Order 2
This week's highlights include the end (and resurrection) of Fortnite, an early look at Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, plus a whole heap of new titles under the microscope - from Manifold Garden to Killer Queen Black to Disco Elysium and far beyond.
Oct. 20, 2019
JikGuard
Kliuless #54: A Decade of LoL
Each week I compile a gaming industry insights newsletter that I publish broadly. Opinions are mine.
Oct. 17, 2019
JikGuard
Case study: Steam's 'Deal Of The Day' & DLC attach
Interpreting some real-world data posted on Twitter by David Leon, the lead creator of shadow-based stealth action game Aragami, to find out some interesting facts about Steam Daily Deals & DLC attach rates.
Oct. 16, 2019
JikGuard
My 3 Year Journey to Create DON'T GIVE UP, a bare all Postmortem
I spent 3 years making my first commercial game, a 7 hour RPG that told a very charming and personal story. I reflect on my efforts, the emotional toll, what I could have done differently, share my release stats, and discuss why it was all worth it.
Oct. 16, 2019
JikGuard
Unity Addressables Hosting: Amazon S3 in 4 Steps
Players want to play, they don't want to wait. Help them buying your game: reduce your game's download size with Unity Addressables Hosting. And a year later? Offer them a DLC based on, guess what? Unity Addressables.
Oct. 16, 2019
JikGuard
A Postmortem. Making Games Is Easy. Selling Them, Not So Much.
To mark the 1 year anniversary of releasing my last game, and after mulling on the project for the past year, I thought I’d do a quick postmortem (of sorts) on the project. Some hard lessons were learned and some truths uncovered, so here goes..
Oct. 15, 2019
JikGuard
js13kGames entry postmortem — Back to the basics
I made a game for js13k, in which you have to deliver a 13kb browser game. I talk about how I designed around this limitation in my entry Backflipped!
Oct. 15, 2019
JikGuard
Game Music and Mood Attenuation: How Game Composers Can Enhance Virtual Presence (Pt. 4)
The 4th of a 4-part series. Video game composer Winifred Phillips shares ideas from her GDC 2019 talk, How Music Enhances Virtual Presence. Part 4: Game Music and Mood Attenuation. Included are practical examples and video demonstrations.
Oct. 15, 2019
JikGuard
The Problem of the Indie Game Pedestal
Despite the growth in the indie space, only a handful of games tend to reach the mainstream market, and for today, we're going to talk about why this focus on only the top games poses a problem for indie developers.
Oct. 14, 2019