Everybody likes feeling important. It’s the reason why you’re more inclined to listen to someone if they address you as “Sir” or “Miss” as opposed to “Hey you” or “Listen, schmuck.” It’s the reason why older siblings often feel a…
Blog Archives
The Importance of Making Players Feel Important
Tagged with: game design, Half-Life, Max Payne, motivation, narrative
Posted in game design, game dev tips
Posted in game design, game dev tips
The Discomfort Zone: The Hidden Potential of Valve’s AI Director
Remember Left 4 Dead? It’s highly likely you do; its 2008 release was heralded with tons of fanfare and a $10 million marketing spend that showed Valve meant business. The push paid off – as of October 2012, the game,…
Tagged with: game design, left 4 dead, narrative, procedural, valve
Posted in game design, narrative
Posted in game design, narrative
Using Narrative and Gameplay Congruency to Enhance Meaningful Play
Everyone loves to talk about immersion in games. The act of submerging the player (or yourself) into a game world, impossible though it may be, remains an unobtainable goal that many developers strive for. But this pursuit is shortsighted –…
Tagged with: desire, dys4ia, Half-Life, motivation, narrative, Shadow of the Colossus, The Walking Dead
Posted in game design, game dev tips, narrative
Posted in game design, game dev tips, narrative
The Fallacy of Choice (In Games and Real Life)
Games love to make a big deal about choices. Unfortunately, most of the time your only options boil down to either saving the helpless baby lamb from starving wolves or punting it to the pack leader, with nary a shade…
I'm Ben Serviss. I design games for hire and write about game design, narrative and NYC developers. New posts every Thursday.