Do UX designers dream of sleek radials?

Six faces arranged in a triangular shape on the left, a cloud funnel in the background on the right and the title Baldur's Gate 3 in the bottom right corner.

Yes, yes they do. Okay, so I woke up in the middle of the night, having dreamed about how to fix the radials in BG III. I don’t even work on that game. The worst part about this is that I can’t really get it out of my head. Sometimes a problem will lodge itself... Continue Reading →

2023-09-25 0

The Missing Voice

An image of several faces, one helmeted, set against a backdrop of space and the text Starfield to the right in a circle. It looks aspirational and hopeful.

Both Baldur's Gate and Starfield have protagonists that have a lot of conversations with a lot of people about a lot of topics. I've mostly been playing Baldur's Gate III and it has a leg up on Starfield. I can see my character in the cutscenes. In Starfield I can't. The expressions of the face... Continue Reading →

2023-09-15 0

Game Design Diary – The Issues With Unclear Unreal

So, I'm trying to make input work in a game that I've been building as part of an Udemy course. The issue is that it is next to impossible to find the bug. I've been redoing the same class, or lecture, or whatever you want to call it, three times now, and it always fails... Continue Reading →

2023-09-01 0

The Issue With Mechanics

Let me preface this by saying that there’s a lot going on in my head right now. I just finished reading Edward Castronova’s Synthetic Worlds and made a lateral jump into Second Person, edited by Harrigan and Wardrip-Fruin. Because Second Person is from 2007, the ludo-narrative war is ongoing, even in these pages. The interesting... Continue Reading →

2023-08-08 0

Game Design Diary – Capturing the Magic

An image with a number of games lined up as well as passes for conferences

I’ve been doing a bunch of captures lately. I’m trying to show my process, successfully or unsuccessfully, I’m not sure yet. I’ve been playing Mad Max, and I’m getting endlessly annoyed at the slow transitions between animations and the unreal twitchiness of the prompt triggers. It’s also fun to do one of those vacuuming exercises... Continue Reading →

2023-08-06 0

Game Design Diary – The Travails of Twine and Unreal

A pile of fake coins and dice spread out over a table.

I’m seriously questioning some of the courses I’ve bought that’s supposedly teaching stuff like Twine and Unreal. Well, actually, I’m questioning what makes men think they’re good enough at teaching that people should pay for it. Most of them lack structure and a clear path forward. Some lack clarity in the scripts. So far, I’ve... Continue Reading →

2023-08-02 0

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