Ernest Adams workshop: Call of Beauty

Two weeks earlier (whoo, how time flies!) we had the Ernest Adams “Fundamental Principles of Game Design”-workshop, which served as an interesting first “proper”, structured group-project in the course. This post is a combined re-telling of events and reflections on the project, snuggled up in a heap of TEXT and BULLET LISTS. Enjoy!
The workshop began with a presentation about (amongst other things):

What is a game?
Types of fun in video games.
The components of gameplay.
Types of challenges.
Interweaving narrative and gameplay.

The most important take-aways from […]

Cooperative chess game

Fundamentals of game design chapter 1 exercise 2: Use a chessboard and chesspieces and the ways they move to create a cooperative game where two players work together to achieve a victory condition.My first idea on this is to have the colors represent each player. This makes it easier for the players to consider themselves important and also guides them in what they can move. I want the enemy to start on the other side of the board and have a system […]

Mechanics are hard

What do you get when your assignment and course material contradicts each others and the presentation that should have been uploaded isn’t there. At least a confused as fuck student.
Maybe it’s just me, but the game workshop where I took the role as the mechanics designer was really weird. The paper was full of fill in the blanks of gameplay modes. The description says I should design core mechanics. The course material says there are lots of types of mechanics. […]

Creeping doom and scary games

What is horror games? Does it make you feel afraid or does it just scream in you face?Horror games has the last years had a really dull view of fear. The game industry thinks that simply a monster in a closet will get us happy and content with the scare factor. And while monsters can be scary, just having them chase us is not enough to make a good horror game. Dead Space wants to call itself a horror game, […]

A deck of cards and unlimited potential

The plan is to get a habit of doing something creative. Let’s take a look at the many games that uses playing cards!

“Read everything. Cut them open. Steal their power.” -Warren Ellis
Those are words from a comic author about improving your craft. for game designers, this could easily translate into play games ehu! But that doesn’t cut it alone, because that’s not giving you anything back. The analytic part is what creates improvement, and this is where my new plan […]

Analysis of Klondike – Effective submission game design

You probably have this game on your computer. It’s an all time classic to play when bored and it can be a really addicting pastime. The colors of the cards is the most important lesson!

Klondike is a form of solitaire which means single player card games. I think most people would recognize this game through their computer since it’s one of windows most classic “games which comes with the machine”. I also think almost everyone has […]

Analysis of Klondike – From computer to reality

How to use mechanics in a way the player can remembers, use and enjoy.

I’m gonna use the same picture this time around too because I like it and it is an accurate depiction on how a game of Klondike looks when played on a computer.

And this is how Klondike looks on my kitchen table. Both these games have the same mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics. The big difference between these two is that […]

Starting with a bang

So. What did I expect from studying game development at Gotland University. Alot of my friends who were experienced programmers at KTH back in stockholm warned me and said that I shouldn’t go to Gotland and instead do something more programming heavy and keep game design as a hobby. But after getting here and experiencing my first lecture, I’m sure that I didn’t make the wrong decision.
Hello, my name is Simon Lundgren. I like games of all kinds. Video games, […]

Game Development

Today was the first day of the Game Development course, in the teams from the major assignment in the Introduction to Game Design-course we got to choose one of the other teams’ designs to develop. This time the first group meeting was a lot more structured and I felt that unlike last time we actually have some clue as to what we are doing. It does not at all feel like it did when creating “With Love…” although it is […]

The Pitch

I just realised that I had written this post about our big presentation but forgotten to post it so here it is.This Monday was the day we had to be finished with our projects and pitch them to the rest of our class, the second year students, our teacher and staff. Of course we where nervous but we felt prepared as we had practiced a lot and put a lot of time into this […]