An old weekly column I wrote.
Oh Lucky Man… Still It’s been twelve years since I wrote the first of the original Developing Thoughts pieces, shortly after I turned freelance following eleven years with Revolution Software. The time feels right to revisit the pieces I wrote at the time and either bring them up to date or reflect on how things …
After chatting on Twitter with the wonderful Amelia Tyler about dialogue and recording, I felt inspired to write a post. There’s a lot that needs to happen in order for great dialogue to appear in a game. Not all of it is down to the writer, of course, so here’s a list of things writers …
I recently had the pleasure of accompanying Mark Estdale in giving a talk to a group of students at the Drama Centre in London about game writing and performance. Mark is long-time friend, runs a voice recording studio called OM and has a huge number of games under his belt. We’re both firmly of the …
Interaction Density I came up with the term “Interaction Density” when I was part of a long forum discussion on the way there are no adventures targeted at 8-13 year old boys. Why did the likes of “Day of the Tentacle” and “Monkey Island” appeal to this age group when they came out, yet today’s …
Back-Story No, this isn’t the story of how I’m in constant pain with my bad back. But now that I’ve brought it up, I wonder how much sympathy I can garner from mentioning the stabbing pains that run up and (That’s enough, Ince. Get on with the column, you pathetic wimp – Ed.)Ahem. Back-story falls …
Character Profiles Part of my current job involves creating the character profiles for my client’s project. Now, I can’t go into the specific details of what I’m doing (for obvious reasons), but I thought I would reflect on how important it is to do this work. Although I’ve already discussed characters, in an earlier column, …
Obstacles of Desire One of my favourite obstacles in a game was in Beneath a Steel Sky. Though I worked on this game, I didn’t contribute to the gameplay design; so I think it’s okay for me to feel this way. One of the reasons I enjoyed my eleven years with Revolution was that I …
Puzzling Through the Obstacles One of the criticisms levelled at Adventure Games these days is that they can feel a little old fashioned. I’m increasingly of the opinion that this is because they contain these things we refer to as “puzzles”. This term can then create the wrong idea in people’s heads as to what …
Shall we interface? Have you ever picked up your joypad or approached your keyboard and found that you struggled to play the game that’s in the machine because the interface felt wrong? Have you ever given up on a game simply because you were fighting the interface more than playing the game? When the interface …
Level 17 Made Me Cry This may seem like I’m being a little slow on the uptake, but I wanted to finish off my two-part piece on mechanics design before writing this. Besides, it’s always best to ruminate on these things for a little while before launching into commentary. Reacting too swiftly to news, people’s …
Gameplay Mechanics part 2 So, it’s a week later and we’ve called the design team together to discuss the results of the brainstorming session. We’ve all typed up our thoughts or scribbled notes in the margins of the brainstorming list. The project is in the early stages, so we’re all really excited about it. We …
Gameplay Mechanics About eight years ago, I was sent a game design handwritten on two sheets of A4 paper with one very small map drawn in pencil. Most of the writing described a story, rather than gameplay, but it was clear that the guy who sent it thought that we’d just take it and implement …