"Remember kids, whenever you get frustrated at the state of the art, or you find yourself struggling to express yourself, just repeat after me: FUCK. VIDEOGAMES." Darius Kazemi (previously,previously and previously) writes about the use and abuse of video games as a means of expression.
posted by codacorolla on May 3, 2013 - 25 comments

Keita's Quick Ideas. In 2011, Keita Takahashi, designer of Katamari Damacy, joined the team of the unconventional MMO game Glitch (previously), which had to close its doors last year. The Glitch people have since published 200 of Keita's ideas for the game.
posted by ignignokt on May 2, 2013 - 31 comments

"When we first started working on Dustforce, it was frustrating to not be able to find much data about whether indie game development is a realistic thing to do with your life." Hitbox Team helps remedy that for future designers in this article about the finances and sales of their game, Dustforce.
posted by gilrain on Apr 16, 2013 - 37 comments

The Castle Doctrine is the new "home invasion MMO" from cult game designer Jason Rohrer (previously: Sleep is Death, Passage, Chain World). It portrays a rather bleak world in which you must place traps to defend your home, family and life savings from an onslaught of burglars. At the same time, you must invade other players' homes to steal their life savings, in order to buy more expensive traps and tools. The more money you gain, the more attractive target your home is, so you better be clever in rigging up those traps. It's fiendish, brilliant, and currently open for public alpha at 50% of the full price. Rock Paper Shotgun has some early impressions: Part 1, Part 2.
posted by naju on Mar 13, 2013 - 101 comments

"For the past few years, I have been trying to learn how to do all the various creative and technical things that go into making a video game - programming, graphics, interface, writing, gameplay design - in addition to music and sound, which I do for a living. The 2013 Global Game Jam was this past weekend, and over two sleep-deprived days I completed my first solo project: A game for OS X and Windows where you punch spaceships with your dick. (Probably safe for work, unless your boss considers it inappropriate to see a pink laser beam with a boxing glove on the tip which shoots out of a giant robot's groin.)"[via mefi projects]
posted by ocherdraco on Jan 28, 2013 - 13 comments

Ever played Monopoly? Then you've played a board game that was designed by a woman (it was, under its original title, "The Landlord's Game," the creation of Elizabeth Magie). Want to play more board games designed by women? Let's go! [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco on Dec 16, 2012 - 24 comments

"The experiences of women may not be easy to portray in the aggressive world of videogames. If such a game is made - and I hope it is - it will be because its creators demanded to be heard. It will be created because women made it." (Source)

While the vast majority of video game titles are designed primarily by men, women have been a part of video game development since the earliest arcades. Here are some of their games: [more inside]
posted by subject_verb_remainder on Dec 1, 2012 - 40 comments

Pongs (browser game, Flash) is Pippin Barr's exploration of a tiny corner of the game design universe: 36 variations of Pong.
posted by nobody on Apr 11, 2012 - 12 comments

Errant Signal is one man's blog about games, wherein he plumbs the nuances of game mechanics, bemoans the state of game journalism, and also offers incredibly insightful reviews of games. He tackles the intrinsic flaws of Deus Ex: Invisible War, broaches heresy by critiquing the Half-Life series, and combats cynicism by gushing about Bastion.
posted by Panjandrum on Feb 15, 2012 - 54 comments

"One for my Baby and one for my BRAIN" "The Last Flight of Onan V" "And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Bread" - GameToilet collects and illustrates one man's game ideas. It's Friday Flash Fun - in your imagination! (Warning: illustrations, imagination may be NSFW.)
posted by Zarkonnen on Nov 25, 2011 - 8 comments

In 1987 the first Castlevania was released. It was followed by Simon's Quest in 1988. The difference between the two games is stark. Although they both have the same basic plot lines (kill Dracula) and setting, Simon's Quest introduced an open world and RPG elements, giving eventual rise to the genre known as "Metroidvania". Sequelitis looks at the difference between these design decisions and shows that maybe Metroidvanias aren't quite as much fun as you might remember.
posted by codacorolla on Nov 3, 2011 - 66 comments

Did you know that popular, absurdly inexpensive board game producer James Ernest's Cheapass Games has released some of their most popular games as free PDFs? Among them Deadwood, Devil Bunny Needs A Ham, The Big Cheese, FALLING and Unexploded Cow? [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jul 23, 2011 - 34 comments

Extra Credits is a weekly video series on the design, status quo and potential of video games. [more inside]
posted by mccarty.tim on May 5, 2011 - 13 comments

Greg Mclanahan of Gamasutra talks how to design achievements right.
posted by flatluigi on Mar 20, 2011 - 78 comments

Choice of Broadsides is a choose-your-own-adventure game set in an alternate 19th Century world that is much like our own, where Albion and Gaul fight for naval supremacy. You can choose to be a gentleman in a standard patriarchal society, or a gentlewoman in a matriarchal one. Later on in the game you can choose your sexual orientation. Originally there were no options for a same-sex relationship, but after demands from players, it was added in. Spoilers below the cut. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Jul 14, 2010 - 42 comments

On a snowy Valentine's Day weekend in Michigan Sid Meier creates a game in 48 hours called Escape from Zombie Hotel! He's there to judge a 48 hour game design contest at his alma mater, University of Michigan but decides to also work on a game alongside the student teams. He also talks about his career, focusing on his early days. This is the third installment of motherboard.tv's Oral History of Gaming series. The first profiles Ralph Baer, the inventor of the first home gaming console, and the second is about Eric Zimmerman, designer of Sissyfight. Sadly, the awesome-looking Escape from Zombie Hotel has note been released, but the oher games designed during the contest are available here. [via Rock Paper Shotgun]
posted by Kattullus on Apr 20, 2010 - 19 comments

Tom Bissell recounts how he was addicted to video games and cocaine and how beautiful he finds computer games. Tom Bissell, who was profiled by Poets & Writers three years ago when his writing career seemed like it could only go up, has written books and articles for such magazines as The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The Believer, among others. For the last three years he's spent his writing time on Grand Theft Auto IV and other games. The Observer convened a number of games journalists and industry folk to converse about video games in connection to Bissell's essay. Earthworm Jim designer Dave Perry gave a TED talk a few years ago about the increasing aesthetic value of games which included a video by a college student Michael Highland called As Real as Your Life, which presents his thoughts about what it's like to have grown up on computer games. [Tom Bissell previously on MeFi]
posted by Kattullus on Mar 22, 2010 - 166 comments

Jean-Paul LeBreton, level designer for BioShock 2, has written an analysis of the original Doom as well as remade (demade?) a level from BioShock using Doom [design notes].
posted by brundlefly on Mar 3, 2010 - 68 comments

Cruise Elroy, by mefi's own danb, is a blog about games, specifically video games and music.

In the past, he has covered the music of Mother 3 and its battle system, gone over Ocarina of Time's music in six parts (plus Koji Kondo's favorite cadence and SSBB's OoT medley), described the use of irregular meter in videogames, pointed out the jazzy basslines of Sonic the Hedgehog, and even examined what the 1-up jingle says about the rest of the game.
posted by flatluigi on Jan 29, 2010 - 24 comments

Howdy, Flash game developers! Remember flixel? Well, a new raster-based ActionScript 3 library has just been released: FlashPunk by Chevy Ray Johnston, creator of Skullpogo and Beacon. [more inside]
posted by archagon on Jan 10, 2010 - 21 comments

flixel is an ActionScript 3 framework abstracted from Adam Atomic's raster-based games, including FATHOM (previously) and Gravity Hook. [more inside]
posted by archagon on Jun 5, 2009 - 33 comments

Chris Crawford puts up videos of some of his earlier talks and interviews. So far, there are four pieces but he says there will be more to come. These are the direct links to Quicktime movies that are also in his forum post which is the initial link. An Interview in 1982 about his nuclear power plant simulation Scram (52 MB), 1990 interview on Balance of Power (62 MB), half-hour interview with 30 seconds of Crawford about Excalibur (331 MB), lecture at the 1990 Computer Game Developers' Conference entitled "The Mystique of the Loop" (657 MB).
posted by Glow Bucket on May 23, 2007 - 13 comments