More from @Fluttermind

Dene Carter

@Fluttermind

23 Jul

I've been asked to opine on design in modern games. So, here goes:

I think we're in a dangerous place. We've created a massive library of 'best practices' and 'design methodologies' and 'interface standards' that have made everything in AAA smooth and homogenous.
Yuck.

We've engagement metrics for 'how often enemy encounters should appear', 'how high your character should jump relative to his size', 'how far the player should be able to see', 'how long missions should last', 'how often characters should talk' etc.

We effectively have our own 'Save the Cat' playbook and it's doing the same thing to games as that toxic dump has had on movies - especially Open World games. As games cost more to develop it's only going to get worse.

Read 18 tweets

Dene Carter

@Fluttermind

22 Jul

#Roguelike folks: I'm going to re-post my new #Moonring dungeon generator algorithm with better formatting. So here goes...

1) First of all, all my dungeons start as a lower-res 'flow diagram'. This is useful because it separates the tile-by-tile detail of the final map from the larger scale ideas about how I want the dungeon to work, and where 'drama' occurs.

So, "B+M+E" would be: Begin, Monster, End and all the + indicate doors between the various rooms. This can both be generated, and also edited with my flow editor:

Read 15 tweets

Dene Carter

@Fluttermind

22 Jul

To all those out there in game-dev world: if your company makes you feel kind of uncomfortable because the bro-ey elements are offputtingly dominant, and your leadership makes sexist remarks without consequence...
...the problem isn't you.
...but the problem is also you.

Unchecked shitty behaviour isn't your *fault*, but maintaining a culture that supports this shit without question *is* kind of your fault... or more accurately, something you can do something about. If you're in a position of privilege, you *can* help.

"Uh. This is making me uncomfortable."
"Can we not, please?"
"Hmm. I'm not sure that's appropriate."
"This right here seems awfully close to an 'HR issue'."
"I've got a problem with this wording..."
etc.

Read 5 tweets

Dene Carter

@Fluttermind

2 Jun 19

It's interesting that #Fable's forebear, Wishworld is repeatedly met with the same comments: "Lol, no way that'd work on an Xbox! How delusional!"
This thinking is rather odd for a number of reasons:

1) We were initially working on PC. We were 'considering' console ports at the time, but it's only when we shifted to Project Ego that we started working with the brand new XBox hardware.

2) The reason we stopped making it was that Sacrifice was announced 4 months after we pitched to that game's publisher, and it was doing 60% of the things we planned.

Read 7 tweets

Share this page!

Dene Carter

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @Fluttermind

Dene Carter

Dene Carter

Dene Carter

Dene Carter

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Like this author's thread?