Category Archives: Blog
Rage of Mages / Аллоды: Печать Тайны
The strategy/RPG mixture Rage of Mages is one of the most popular games of 1998 that has played a big role in changing the course of the entire video game industry…
… In Russian-speaking countries.
And while it was also popular in some neighboring lands like Poland, internationally Rage of Mages didn’t even win Gamespot’s ‘Best Game No One Played’ award. At least it WAS nominated.
To be fair the Gamespot review in particular was actually pretty positive, which makes sense given the nomination, but overall the game’s international reception both among the press and players was pretty mixed at best.
One of the reasons why Rage of Mages was much better received locally is that after Tetris it was, if not the first, then at least one of the first video games developed in the region to get a widespread global release. Not to mention it was made in just 15 months and released literally against all odds.
Read the rest of this entryFarlands – Systemic Crafting of Evil Islands
[VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
This video is supported by Patreon.
www.patreon.com/farlands
Systemic gameplay is a very big topic recently. Even though systemic games have existed for a long time, nowadays there’s a lot of conscious discussion about titles that provide emergent situations by allowing the players to experiment with the rules and mechanics in place. A lot of those games feature a crafting system, and it just feels that it would be natural for crafting to also be expanded in a systemic way, and yet for some reason that doesn’t happen.
Crafting mostly is this direct exchange of a particular set of resources into a particular object. The exact nature of this exchange can vary – in some games you require a recipe before crafting something, in some you might want to experiment and figure out what the recipe is. There are games where recipes require not a concrete resource but a certain type, or where you need a particular skill before the exchange happens. Some games feature mechanics like sockets which you can imbue with something, customizing the item more. Some allow you to do a lot of things with what you craft, but at the core most crafting systems are still about spending particular resources to get a particular item.
And there actually IS a game which has implemented a systemic crafting system 18 years ago. And in this month’s edition of Farlands, a series about video games and video game design, I will try to propagate its principles into the world, as I believe they’re worthy of further exploration. My name is Stanislav Costiuc, and welcome to the video about Systemic Crafting of Evil Islands. Read the rest of this entry
Farlands – What Is Good Game Design?
[VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
This video is supported by Patreon.
www.patreon.com/farlands
Video Game Design. Sometimes we think we have it all figured out. At least to the point that we can safely say what design decisions are bad and shouldn’t be done in games. After all, there’s enough history to go around with and tons of established conventions, right?
Like, for example, it is bad design to not put frequent automatic checkpoints in the game. If you fail a particularly tricky challenge, or it so happens that you need to exit the game, we don’t want to push you too much back, that would be too punishing. Therefore, infrequent checkpoints are bad… But they’re also good, like Alien: Isolation shows with its manual save point system where save spots are placed a fair space apart. Read the rest of this entry
Cohesive Game Experience, Part II
In this three-part video series, we’re continuing to talk about cohesive game experience: what is it, why is it important, and how to achieve it.
Thanks for watching! Feel free to leave any comments below! 🙂
And if you’d like, consider supporting my work on Patreon! Thank you very much!
Cohesive Game Experience, Part I
In this three-part video series, we’re going to talk about cohesive game experience: what is it, why is it important, and how to achieve it.
Thanks for watching! Feel free to leave any comments below! 🙂
And if you’d like, consider supporting my work on Patreon! Thank you very much!
Of Telltale Formula and Game of Thrones
In this video we’ll talk about the so called Telltale formula coined by The Walking Dead, how it should adapt to apply to Game of Thrones franchise, and why Game of Thrones should not allow to retry failed game segments.
Thanks for watching! Feel free to leave any comments below! 🙂
And if you’d like, consider supporting my work on Patreon! Thank you very much!
Why Dark Souls Should Have an Easy Mode
We’re going to talk about the nature of difficulty levels and difficulty scaling, and how that should apply to hardcore games like Dark Souls.
Thanks for watching! Feel free to leave any comments below! 🙂
And if you’d like, consider supporting my work on Patreon! Thank you very much!
Characterization Through Mechanics
In this video, we’ll talk about the importance of mechanics in adding depth and personality to characters in games on example of Thomas Was Alone and few other games, and what things we need to take into account when adding or reusing mechanics in the games we make.
Thanks for watching! Feel free to leave any comments below! 🙂
And if you’d like, consider supporting my work on Patreon! Thank you very much!
Stanislav Costiuc 