Mar

2K Marin’s Steve Gaynor is back with another incredibly insightful piece on game design.  With great wisdom Steve dives into the very foundation of how we design games and where the true strength of our medium.  Summing up brilliantly the growing opinion that games will fail if they try to emulate film as they need to embrace The immersion model of meaning, giving the player complete authorial control and changing them in a much more impactfull way than could ever happen living out someone else’s story.

Title: “The Immersion Model of Meaning“ – Original Article

Written by: Steve Gaynor(Fullbright.blogspot.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on March 31st, 2009

Mar

We are very excited to offer one of the biggest articles in IB history from  Eric Scharf as he takes an incredibly comprehensive look about the truth of our industry compared to the perceived truth the public has, what it takes to create and maintain an environment in which creative quality products are produced without destroying lives and lastly the very  detailed procedures of starting up a game studio.

Title A: ‘Truth in Advertising, Available Talent, and Work Environment‘ – Original Article

Title B: ‘Balance, Bigger Picture, and Battling the Vicious Cycle‘ – Original Article

Title C: ‘Building Your Own Game Development Studio‘ – Original Article

Written by: Eric Scharf (www.emscharf.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on March 23rd 2009

Mar

Jesper Juul graciously brings us the second article this month.  The second from this brilliant scholar tackles the issue of difficulty in games and what is the right amount.. Do players want the challenge, are they turned off when they fail, what systems best allow failure without frustration.  All of this and much more in today’s shocking article, which will keep you guessing right to the end.  On the edge of your seat no doubt!

Title: ‘Fear of Failing? The Many Meanings of Difficulty in Video Games‘ – Original Article

Book: “Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds“

Written by: Jesper Juul (www.jesperjuul.net)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on March 22nd, 2009

Mar

Noel Llopis tackles the issue of Software maintenance to help programmers and managers a like more accurately estimate the true costs of tool and feature implementation to give them a better understanding of if that tool or feature is actually worth it.

Title: ‘Maintenace: The Hiddle Cost of Software‘ – Original Article

Written by: Noel Llopis (www.gamesfromwithin.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on March 20th, 2009

Mar

Clinton Keith is finishing up a big string of articles with this 4 piece compilation that starts with an important piece on Agile not being a silver bullet.  In this he dismisses the myth that Agile is the end all and be all to solve your problems and ensure your studio produces the next big hit.  In the article he goes over some of the other important aspects of what it takes to make a hit and how even studios that are produces hit games can benefit from agile.

Mr. Keith is also putting on a 2 day seminar at GDC this year(March 23 and 24th) and we definitely recommend you head over to http://www.clintonkeith.com/next-public-course for more info!

Title A: “No Silver Bullet“ – Original Article

Title B: “Agile Stability“ – Original Article

Title C: “Syncronized Sprint Focus Tests“ – Original Article

Title D: “Team Definitions Redux“ – Original Article

Written by: Clinton Keith(www.clintonkeith.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on March 17th, 2009

Mar

Daniel Cook‘s back again with another thought provoking piece about Paintbox games.  Games he says that not only encourage a player to be creative but actually augment a players ability to be creative by giving him/her the tools and encouragement to easily and confidently be able to express their creativity.  Of course also touching on what it takes to make a paintbox game and why they are so important.

Title: “Paintbox Games“ – Original Article

Written by: Daniel Cook(www.lostgarden.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on March 15th, 2009

Mar

Chris Bateman has written a wonderfully intellectual piece to compliment the previous article on The Anarchy of Paidia .  Today we look intensely at what it means to be Ludic play and perhaps our honored definitions must be loosened if we are going to truly understand the nature of Ludic play as it applies to Video Games.

Title: “The Complexity of Ludus“ – Original Article

Book: Beyond_Game_Design: Nine Steps Towards Creating Better Videogames, by Charles River Media

Written by: Chris Bateman(www.ihobo.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on March 13th, 2009

Mar

John Hattan brings us the second article from the Gamedev.net book collection.  Today John goes over a few penny pinching tips that could help save your team money here and there.  “Some of them might seem trivial and would only save you a couple of dollars, but hopefully a few of them added together will get your game done quickly and under budget—maybe even way under budget.”

Title: “How to Do Stuff Quickly and Cheaply“

Book: Business and Production: A GameDev.net Collection – click to purchase

Publisher: Course Technology PTR

Written by: John Hattan (www.gamedev.net / thecodezone.com)

Read aloud by: John Hattan on March 11, 2009

Mar

Joris Dorman takes a break from video games today and delves into the systems and mechanics of the classic role playing game as seen from a Video Game Designer.  This article represents a massive in-depth look at what makes up the classic role playing game, and while not directly to do with Video Games the systems and mechanics that make for a succesful roleplaying game can easily be transfered into the world of MMORPG’s or computer role playing games.

Title: “On The Role of a Die“ – Original Article

Written by: Joris Dormans(www.jorisdormans.nl)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on January 15th, 2009

Mar

Clinton Keith is back once again with more insight on the workings of scrum and lean development in a Game Studio setting.  Today we look at how the role of QA or game testers needs to change in an agile development environment.  How the status quo for what we think of as a tester needs to go out the window and be replaced with that which can accommodate an iterative development, keeping the players interests in mind throughout the entire project.

Mr. Keith is also putting on a 2 day seminar at GDC this year(March 23 and 24th) and we definitely recommend you head over to http://www.clintonkeith.com/next-public-course for more info!

Title: “Beyond Scrum – Lean and Kanban for Game Developers“ – Original Article

Written by: Clinton Keith(www.clintonkeith.com)

Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on January 19th, 2009

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