Browser Support for Composition
As the web becomes filled with more and more advanced applications, the number of text boxes I find myself composing into increases. A typical day has me writing lengthy forum posts, lengthy messages...
View ArticleFake Doors and Invisible Walls
When playing video games, we tend to be more adventurous than we are in real life. Most people wouldn’t even jiggle the handle on a mysterious door in the subway. Joe Bronx, on the other hand, well...
View ArticleSave Game Slave
Saving games is really important. Being able to save and continue not only allows you to fit gameplay into your own personal schedule, it also allows game developers to create experiences that span...
View ArticleMisreading the Player Feedback Loop
Hello, everyone! I present a case study on the dangers of misreading the player feedback loop. Zilch: The name of the game and the amount of respect its developers have for the players Recently a game...
View ArticleBloody Fun Day
Back in November I flew to San Diego to meet up with the rest of the Urbansquall team for our annual get together. This year’s theme was a game in a week. We rented out two hotel rooms, opened the...
View ArticleThe Pirate Google: An Unfair Comparison
In their latest attempt to legitimize legally dubious actions, pirates have launched a website called The Pirate Google. They claim that the recent court verdict condemning The Pirate Bay, a popular...
View ArticleThe Age of Reality Work
As an indie developer I’m always keeping an eye out for independent game competitions to participate in. Alas, a new breed of competition has appeared. This new breed doesn’t pay you in money, or...
View ArticleEverything You Know About Video Games is Wrong
Look at that troll bait headline! To clarify a bit, everything you know about video games is actually right, but only when talking about a niche of game players. This niche is called hardcore gamers....
View ArticleYou Can’t Afford to Work More Than 40 Hours
Everyone knows that time is money. So why is it that money management and time management are two different topics? What happens when we apply an extremely common money management technique to time...
View ArticleWhen Alignment Doesn’t Matter
Many games try to make character development interesting by allowing you to make good and evil decisions throughout the game. Here is a thought exercise: what do you get when a character makes a good...
View ArticleWhat is Mid-core? An Essay on Outgrowing Hardcore
What is mid-core? Defining this buzzword is a hot topic in the games industry. Here’s my favorite definition which I have honed through multiple talks with other developers. Mid-core is a movement to...
View ArticleStop Those Kittens – Game Jam Post Mortem
Kill Screen and OUYA recently teamed up to offer a game jam for the OUYA console called the CREATE contest. We had roughly ten days to jam out a game and submit it to the judges. Here is a video with...
View ArticleCreating Accountability for Opinions on the Internet
I’d like a website where I can enter in a prediction and who said it, and then later come back and mark whether the prediction was good or bad. You get a point for a good prediction and lose a point...
View ArticleShut Up Everybody!
The internet is full of opinions. If you’re like me you can’t help but wade into the comments thread on a controversial blog post. It’s a guilty pleasure. Wouldn’t it be nice if a computer could detect...
View ArticleEndless Evil
My latest game, Endless Evil is released! Play it on Kongregate. http://www.kongregate.com/games/YAYitsAndrew/endless-evil
View ArticleHow to Monetize Like League of Legends
Be a hobby. Every F2P game aspires to becoming a hobby, League of Legends has done it. Just like any other hobby, you’ll need to pony up a lump of cash to really get going. To LoL’s credit, your early...
View ArticleCommodity Game Design – Avoiding Clones
Why is game cloning seemingly on the rise? Combine F2P’s focus on simple-yet-addictive gameplay with a lowered barrier on releasing games, and you get the perfect market forces for the commoditization...
View ArticlePuzzle Fuzz: Episode 1
Check out my latest game Puzzle Fuzz! http://www.kongregate.com/games/YAYitsAndrew/puzzle-fuzz-episode-1 Visit puzzlefuzz.com
View ArticleThe Danger of Game Options
There’s a game night at the Folsom St Foundry every Tuesday in San Francisco. Organizers fill the block-sized event space with board games strewn across a dozen tables and hook up over twenty consoles...
View ArticleSearch Isn’t Solved
Sometimes you’ll hear people say that Search is a solved problem. It turns out that’s not really true. What we’ve solved is a specific subset of Search where the person doing the searching already...
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