Claire Blackshaw gives brief intro to using spreadsheets in Opinion: Stop Being The Useless Designer – Excel and Formulas. Excel (and other spreadsheet programs such as Numbers and Open Office) has excellent tools to quick prototype game system behaviors, as Blackshaw points outs. For prototyping complex behaviors, writing simple computer programs in unavoidable, I think.Continue reading “Quick Intro to Spreadsheets for Game Designers”
Author Archives: lankoski
Opinion: The Value Of Education (Carlisle)
Phil Carlisle (game developer on a break from the commercial game development) in Opinion: The Value Of Education writes about his experiences on teaching and researching at the university. Worth reading.
Player Character Engagement in Computer Games
My article Player Character Engagement in Computer Games came out. Here is the abstract: This article argues how players can control a player character influence interpretation and facilitate engagement within a game. Engagement with player characters can be goal-related or empathic, where goal-related engagement depends on affects elicited by goal-status evaluations whereas characters facilitate empathicContinue reading “Player Character Engagement in Computer Games”
Physical Pain and Social Rejection
Researchers demonstrate that our brain responds to social rejection in a similar way with physical pain. This research add more evidence for embodiment hypothesis. The authors write: “They [the results] are also consistent with research on “embodiment,” which suggests that somatosensory processing is integral to the experience of emotion.” Krossa, Bermana, Mischelb, Smithb & WagerdContinue reading “Physical Pain and Social Rejection”
Nice Introduction to Unity Approach
Gamasutra has a nice piece explaining the main ideas behind Unity approach titled The Six Misconceptions I Had About Unity.
Witcher 2 Interview on Gamasutra
Christian Nutt interviews Tomasz Gop, the senior producer of the Witcher 2 in The Complicated Workings of The Witcher 2. The interview gives some glimpses how CD Projekt Red approached story design and quest design in the game to create choices that influence how the events evolve within the game.
AI Design for Believable Characters via Gameplay Design Patterns
Lankoski, Johansson, Karlsson, Björk & Dell’Acqua, AI Design for Believable Characters via Gameplay Design Patterns just game out. Here is the abstract: We address the problem of creating human-like, believable behavior for game characters. To achieve character believability in games, the game designer needs to develop that character so that it fulfills as many aspectsContinue reading “AI Design for Believable Characters via Gameplay Design Patterns”
Game Audio Symposiom
Game Audio Symposium is an event organized by the Media Factory (Aalto University) and Finnish Game Audio Network on Friday May 20th 2011 at the Media Center Lume (Hämeentie 135 C). The symposium presents speakers from game industry as well as academia. The industry speakers include Paul Weir (Earcom, UK), Max Lachmann (Avalanche Studios, SWE),Continue reading “Game Audio Symposiom”
IJPR Issue 2:1 is out
New issue: journalofroleplaying.org/?page_id=226 Jonne Arjoranta. Defining Role-Playing Games as Language-Games William J. White. Playing House in a World of Night: Discursive Trajectories of Masculinity in a Tabletop Role-Playing Game Myriel Balzer. Immersion as a Prerequisite of the Didactical Potential of Role-Playing Noirin Curran. Stereotypes and Individual Differences in Role-playing Games J. Tuomas Harviainen. Sadomasochist Role-PlayingContinue reading “IJPR Issue 2:1 is out”
Some Refelections on the Game Project Course
In the Game Project course students design and develop a game from a scratch to (at least) beta level. It is obvious that current version of the game project course has some flaws. Currently the structure suffers issues of the big-design-first model. The course milestones set does not require prototyping and iteration. This has workedContinue reading “Some Refelections on the Game Project Course”
