The Perfect Pasta Sauce

Posted By gareth / April, 22, 2013 / 5 comments

Jim Sterling says it rather well in this week’s Jimquisition. There is no Perfect Pasta Sauce. Only Perfect Pasta Sauces.

RPG Design – Party-based VS Solo Character

Posted By gareth / April, 1, 2013 / 0 comments

Inspired by a thread on the ITS forums, I thought I’d write a little bit about designing an RPG around a party of player-controlled characters vs the player controlling only one character. There are various folks who loudly proclaim that one or the other type is the only pure form of RPG but, in my…

No!

Posted By gareth / March, 14, 2013 / 1 comments

No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Garrett redesigned to appeal to modern audience of today’s console market

Touring Frathouses

Posted By gareth / December, 10, 2012 / 0 comments

“We went and did a tour… around to a bunch of, like, frathouses and places like that. People who were gamers. Not people who read IGN. And [we] said, so, have you guys heard of BioShock? Not a single one of them had heard of it.” I would have liked to be in that meeting,…

This week’s best reading

Posted By gareth / November, 24, 2012 / 0 comments

Two excellent pieces of writing I’ve read this week, thought I’d share them with you. Firstly, Rockpapershotgun (which you should already be reading, as it’s the finest gaming publication on this here internet) does a fantastic series of articles called “Gaming Made Me”, where folk share their stories about the game that first truly ignited…

Games on my Radar : Prison Architect

Posted By gareth / October, 19, 2012 / 0 comments

Dunno about you guys, but I love me a good management sim. I have fond memories of games like Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital, and frankly I’d love to make one myself, at some point in the future. As a matter of fact, I already have a few ideas for sim games. I have a…

Beauty

Posted By gareth / October, 12, 2012 / 0 comments

Obsidian shows us how good pre-rendered-with-handpainted-details can look, using modern technology. And it’s just beautiful. I’m definitely excited now. Maybe that makes me a graphics whore, but so be it. IT’S PRETTY, I LIKE THE PRETTY. In the final stretch of their Kickstarter campaign, Obsidian have reached for the big guns, revealing 2 delicious stretch…

Why I Make Games : 18 developers answer the question

Posted By gareth / September, 27, 2012 / 3 comments

Lovely piece up on Edge where 18 well-known developers answer the question “What motivates you to make games?” I found it rather inspiring. I’ve mentioned before, sometimes I wonder if I still want to make games, if I still enjoy gaming. Sometimes, you need something to remind you of what you love about a thing….

Farewell to the Biodocs

Posted By gareth / September, 19, 2012 / 1 comments

News is all over the net, Bioware’s founders, Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka (how you pronounce those surnames, I have no idea) have both publicly announced their resignation from Bioware. More interestingly, the announcement comes almost 5 years exactly after their acquisition by EA. Given their simultaneous resignations, this suggests that 5 years was the…

FTL makes me feel excited about gaming again.

Posted By gareth / September, 17, 2012 / 0 comments

After hearing multiple people I respect rave about FTL, I decided to give it a try. And I’m glad I did, it’s rather lovely. If you don’t know, it’s basically a roguelike-meets-Firefly/Star Trek simulator. You command a small ship navigating hostile space, having encounters (text adventures), getting into battles, managing crew and resources, upgrading your…