Note from Mike in 2012: I wrote this article and its companion more than 4 years ago. In that time, my game design philosophy has evolved and changed quite a bit. While I think there are still good nuggets to pull out of these articles, I just want to say that they’re no longer as…
Category: Game Design
Video Games = Art?
http://gamasutra.com/features/20070316/ochalla_01.shtml Gamasutra drives down this road one more time. This time inspired by the comparisons between 300 and video games. It’s kind of a misleading topic. When Roger Ebert, for example, says that games aren’t art, he’s simply trying to be dismissive of video games’ impact on society. I doubt the man is really interested…
Wii Play
I was just remembering yesterday how over the holidays I took my Wii home for my relatives to play. It really amazed me how easily they all, from my 5 year old cousin to my 60 year old aunt, picked it up. Most of the time, when I brought my game systems with me, I’d…
How Games Affect Us
Sometime last year I played a game called “Indigo Prophecy.” (If you haven’t played it, I highly recommend picking it up. I can vouch for the PS2 version, at least). The game had a number of really interesting mechanics about it that felt very good, but one in particular stuck in my mind, and I…