Psychochild’s Blog

A developer’s musings on game development and writing.

August 19, 2008

The secrets of storytelling

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 9:50 PM
(This post has been viewed 42 times.)

Scientific American had an interesting article on The Secrets of Storytelling. The article 's focus is on why storytelling works so well for humans. Most of the reasons relate to social activities.

Some food for thought since we deal with social activities in online games.
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August 16, 2008

Weekend Design Challenge: Evaluating your local culture

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 3:12 PM
(This post has been viewed 138 times.)

This week, let's turn our attention to ourselves for a change. Culture is an important part of games, so let's take a look at what local cultural aspects are important to game design. This is hard, because it is often difficult to identify what makes your culture unique in the eyes of others.
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August 11, 2008

Weekend Design Challenge: An Indie Game

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 3:04 AM
(This post has been viewed 293 times.)

This week, let's look at another brief, indie game, Chatroom.

This is a brief adventure-type game set in the future. A few issues to consider after the break.
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August 6, 2008

Short Story: Caravan of Lost Souls

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 4:14 AM
(This post has been viewed 146 times.)

I haven't posted up any short stories in a while. I found an old one I had worked on previously and figured I'd post it up for the enjoyment of all.

Caravan of Lost Sousl
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August 4, 2008

Weekend Design Challenge: PvP Event

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 8:31 PM
(This post has been viewed 288 times.)

I've started work with a team on an upcoming indie game, Secondhand Lands. It's a quirky little game involving sheep and wolves supporting different factions in a land heavily influenced by fairy tales. There's quite a few PvP elements in the game, living up to the wolves vs. sheep characters in the game.

This week, let's consider some possible PvP events in the game. More details about the game and the requirements after the jump.
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July 27, 2008

Weekend Design Challenge: Review a Game

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 11:27 PM
(This post has been viewed 433 times.)

This week's challenge is going to be lengthy, but if you do it then it will be a great learning experience: write a review of a game.

More thoughts after the jump.
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July 20, 2008

Weekend Design Challenge: Forming a community

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 10:49 PM
(This post has been viewed 431 times.)

In this weekend's exercise, explain how you would build a community for an online game on a limited budget.

My thoughts after the jump.
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July 17, 2008

Advice from a failed startup

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 11:47 PM
(This post has been viewed 893 times.)

I found an interesting blog entry covering a post-mortem of a failed tech start startup: http://diffle-history.blogspot.com/ If you're thinking of starting your own small tech business, including a game development firm, I think that blog is required reading. It's not 100% gospel, but it can give you the much needed perspective on your business.

Read on for my take on a few of the issues.
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July 11, 2008

Weekend Design Challenge: Time off

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 8:00 AM
(This post has been viewed 413 times.)

I wrote this entry ahead of time and set it to be published today. Figured I'd give people something to think about while I'm gone.

As I wrote before, I'm off visiting family without the benefit of an internet connection. That also means I'm not playing any online games. So, let's think about what this means for most normal people.

How can we treat time away from our computers in online games?
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July 8, 2008

Out of Town

Filed under: — Psychochild @ 12:10 AM
(This post has been viewed 192 times.)

I'm going to be out of town visiting family back in the Midwest. My better half's sister doesn't have internet, so I may not be able to check the moderation queue on a regular basis.

Email may be sporadic, too. But, I'll reply as I can when I get back in town on the 13th.

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Posts Copyright 2004-2008 Brian Green, aka Psychochild. Comments belong to their authors.

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