As the subtitle states, this is a framework for a technical understanding of game mechanics in systems — not so much a creative one. I’ve been developing it while working on design documents for various projects, and I feel like it might be useful other designers out there. Its purpose…

I wanted to skip my university’s commencement. I probably would have if my parents weren’t going. I couldn’t help but think that the whole process was completely unnecessary. Sitting outside, in the sun for 3 hours for your name to be said aloud wasn’t really how I wanted to spend…

Video game doors rarely have more than two states: open or shut, locked or unlocked. Walk up to a door in a game, and it is likely that it’ll either open automatically or swing completely open. Very rarely could you control how open or shut the door was. In the…

Let’s say we’ve bought this new game called Dark Souls. We’ve heard great things about it from our friends. It’s got an awesome world and cool monsters. We get to level-up our character however we want, explore wherever we want, and use whatever weapons and armor we want. But when…

Loading screens are terrible. Nobody likes them, but they’re necessary. Memory has limitations, and assets have only gotten bigger. Asset streaming introduces its own host of problems. Players have come to understand that to get to the next piece of juicy content, they just got to wait a little bit…

When The Question was first put to me, it was in a job interview, and I had no idea what they meant. I wasn’t sure if they meant if I can code or do art. They said that wasn’t it. “Here’s an example,” they said, “if you were making a…

Player errors are important. A big part of game design is making decisions about error space. Do you expand the error space, like with hazards in platformers? Do you contract it, like with aim assist in shooters? Platformers like Uncharted might not need hazards, and, likewise, shooters like Counter-Strike don’t…

With the Tekken World Tour Finals over, it’s safe to say that there hasn’t been a better time to watch (and play) Tekken. For a series that’s long been in the shadows, it’s finally getting its time in the spotlight. The newest installment hits a sweet spot of being relatively…