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Video Game Deep Cuts: The 4D Cyberpunk Fire
This week's highlights include the Cyberpunk RPG's original author, 4D Toys' brain-bending surreality, Fire Pro Wrestling's resurgence, and lots more.
July 17, 2017
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Video game music systems at GDC 2017: pros and cons for composers
In the GDC 2017 audio track, several interactive music systems were presented. In part 2 of her 3 article series, video game composer Winifred Phillips discusses the pros & cons of these systems, while also sharing case studies from her own projects.
July 17, 2017
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What we learned improvising a live game soundtrack
We did a couple of live stage performances where we improvised a new soundtrack to someone playing Journey and Ori And The Blind Forest. This post shares a video compilation of the performance and explains our approach and what did and didn't work.
July 17, 2017
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Big in the West: Swery, Igarashi, and others discuss the Japanese game industry
In a rare roundtable, Swery, Koji Igarashi, 4gamer journalist Masatoshi Tokuoka, and Necrosoft Games' Brandon Sheffield discuss the future of the japanese game industry.
July 17, 2017
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My personal crusade against mini-maps and other corner based HUD elements in immersive games.
How to maintain "immersion" in games? Easy, we need to stop put critical or often used info elements in the corners of a screen! It�s breaking immersion due to peripheral vision loosing contact with game world and subconscious reconnects with reality!
July 14, 2017
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Helping You Kickstart, Part I: The Pre-Campaign Period
This is part one of three articles that go into detail about preparing and running a Kickstarter campaign for your video game. Hopefully our positive experience of funding our game, Gibbous, will help you in your crowd funding adventure!
July 14, 2017
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VR Comfort and Optimisation in Sublevel Zero Redux
In bringing Sublevel Zero Redux (our roguelike six-degree-of-freedom shooter) to VR we've had to overcome serious design and technical challenges. We dive into some of the solutions we've implemented to make such an intense game a great VR experience.
July 13, 2017
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Mechanics – Building on the Foundation
Building on my previous blog post I discuss further on how to help mechanics grow, with using them in multiple ways to help players learn.
July 13, 2017
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Mind Games: Dissecting Get Even's Narrative-Mechanics Synergy
An analysis article exploring the design facets of The Farm 51's psychological thriller Get Even, and how they interact with one another from a narrative and mechanical standpoint to create a cohesive and inventive virtual experience.
July 13, 2017
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theHunter: Call of the Wild - Designing Believable, Simulated Animal AI
A detailed dive into the AI design behind the animals in Avalanche Studios' theHunter: Call of the Wild.
July 13, 2017
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The Hidden Complexity of Video Slot Games
Everything I wish I knew about video slot games before I started making them
July 12, 2017
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Paper Playtesting and Roleplaying as an NPC to design "The Irregular"
We saved thousands of dollars and weeks of work by "getting into our players' heads" by designing a printed paper version of our showcase VR game. We share our playtesting process and lessons for running your own UX tests on paper prototypes.
July 11, 2017