What constitutes a 'game design idea?' Let's find out. Sometimes I imagine it will be the kernel of a complete game, other times a single mechanic, a game, a toy, an activity...who can say. Me, I guess. Starting tomorrow.
So, why?
The goal for me is to force myself to spend a few minutes a day outside of work focusing on my own ideas, stirring the pot, drawing water from the well, insert favored metaphor here.
I'll keep it up as long as it makes sense for me. I encourage folks to stop by and talk about the design ideas, poke holes, riff, tell me what game you saw that exact mechanic in, offer encouragement, and be sure to razz me should, heaven forfend, I miss a day.
Gareth has recently entered an agreement with Candlewick Press. They will soon be releasing a new edition of his Beowulf and other new projects
Gareth is casting one of those upcoming projects, and asked me to sit for him as a possible model for a small part. The image on left leads to the full scan of the quick test. I hope I make the cut!
Now don't just sit there, go check out his work!
A beginner's guide to driving in the mirror-lands.
We were very clever (we thought), and rented the same make of car that we drive at home to help ease the transition. This was a mistake. Instead of things feeling obviously wrong, and thus easy to remember, things were subtly wrong, and generally plagued us the entire trip. Left turns were consistently signaled by turning on the windshield wipers.
We felt bad about that, until we noticed the behavior in other cars, at which point it helped foster a sense of community. We were a band of clean-screened brothers, driving dangerously close to the curb. To avoid embarrassment, always try to drive in the rain.
We came back alive, and so can you! From using rumble strips to recalibrate your car-sense to call-and-response tricks to maintain the proper lane, it's the one guide about driving on the wrong side of the road that you can't afford not to read for free!
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I'm getting reports that it's taking a really long time for people to get their password email after registering.
While I investigate this, I'm just going to turn off registration for the moment, as an experiment. Anyone should be able to post for now.
It will probably end in tears, but you don't know until you try.
Woot! Stop by the Press page and see what they said. Hint: it was nice.
I said it there and I'll say it here: any time a game I designed is mentioned on an awards page [in a box, off in the corner, to be fair] with the Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, well, that's one happy day.
Everyone at Helixe was putting in crazy hours and putting in an extraordinary effort. I would call you all out by name, but it would pretty much be the company directory (which needs a bit of updating). Battles were waged, bullets dodged, compromises made, tears cried, but at the end of the day we put out a pretty decent little game.
I've updated Sean's Dial Ticks , a nifty little gadget for making all variety of dial-based instrument panels. It has new color choosing features, a working font selector, and a spiffy new built-in help file.
Check it out.
Now the sad news. I also found a sad little orphan script by the name of SHM ArcView Importer . This little ragamuffin is a work I laughingly call in-progress.
It reads ArcView shapefiles allowing you to create some cool, high resolution maps. But it has the potentional to do so much more. I haven't worked on this one in about two years, so use it as is, or jump in and add some of the missing functionality. Links to shapefile resources, as well as coding resources are available.
Head on over to the LScript download page to get in on the action.
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