Immortality
It is difficult for games to create truly memorable characters. Because the characters who populate our worlds can behave in many different ways, based on the design of the game and the role they play within it, it’s an awkward…
Category Narrative Design
Eve DevBlog 25: Writing the Angles
Kind of a weird week since I spent all of my Eve time on writing more level flow and story. I know it’s real work, but it don’t always feel like it… Here’s where I’m at. There are four chapters…
Other Lives
Isn’t it strange how complex and overwhelming our feelings about fictional people can become? There is a conflict of impulses: The sympathetic and the dramatic. We want characters to be happy for the same reason we want our friends and…
No Accountability
Something I always liked about playing Final Fantasy games in particular and JRPGs in general is the way random deities tended to turn up as various monsters in the world. These creatures usually had approximately fuck-all to do with their…
Eve DevBlog 24: Flow State
This week was mostly dedicated to writing out level flows. I’ve planned out most of Chapter 2 in general terms, and all that’s left to do to complete this phase of Chapter 2’s design is to plan out a few…
Stories
The more one pays attention to things, the more one notices similarities. I’m spending a lot of time, now, writing– stories and essays, but they both have a similar rhythm. Exposition, twist, resolution. I can add more twist, or alternate…
Solipsism
He also programmed robots to write books and magazines and newspapers for you, and television and radio shows, and stage shows, and films. They wrote songs for you. The Creator of the Universe had them invent hundreds of religions, so…
Eve DevBlog 21: Tension
Been working really hard this week but don’t have nearly as much stuff to show for it as last week. It has largely been an exercise in frustration, both in terms of dealing with the infuriating little life things (such…
Strange Places
There is something bleak and beautiful and strange about old games that will always pull at my soul. Is it nostalgia? Perhaps. Nostalgia is certainly a component. It’s always a bit strange seeing a movie I loved as a child,…
Balance and Expression
The capability that games offer for self-expression is exciting, but can also be onerous. In much the same way as we are made uncomfortable by articles telling us what the way we move or dress or speak says about us,…