Category Archives: The Lazy Designer

If you read Dutch… (game AI)

While doing some clean up on the Lazy Designer I stumbled (again) across the site of Pieter Spronck. I met him several years ago while he was researching adaptive game AI. One of the games he was using was Neverwinter Nights. Anyways if you read Dutch you can read his discussion on the meeting he …

May 22, 2013 – 1:41 pm | By Brent Knowles | Posted in The Lazy Designer | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Lazy Designer Book 3 Exploration and Gameplay Is…

Not finished yet. I am working on it. It is just that it has so much more content than the previous two volume combined, that it’s more akin to finishing one of my novels. Which means, it takes time. That said, I have finally finished my giant grammar pass through all the sections and have …

April 26, 2013 – 1:26 pm | By Brent Knowles | Posted in My Life, The Lazy Designer, Writing Resources | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Doors (Lazy Designer #3 Excerpt)

I realize I have not been posting much game design related information to this blog, so here’s a snippet from the rough copy of the next Lazy Designer book. This excerpt is from the systems chapter of Lazy Designer #3 : Designing Gameplay. Doors Doors seem simple, at least in our real world (unless you’ve …

February 28, 2013 – 8:43 pm | By Brent Knowles | Posted in The Lazy Designer | Tagged , , , | Comments (5)

Update and a Happy New Year

Belated Happy New Year! The reason for the delay is that I’ve been busy with family stuff over the holidays and a new programming project that I’ve been working on. Generally, to relax, I tend to write software whenever I take a bit of a break from writing. Yeah, I’m that weird. Anyways, I just …

January 7, 2013 – 2:50 pm | By Brent Knowles | Posted in The Lazy Designer, Writing Resources | Tagged , | Comments (3)

Lazy Designer: Pricing

Okay, this is perhaps a strange blog post but I’ve been spending some time thinking about this and figured I’d solicit opinions from the readers out there. (And yes, I’m sure I’m overthinking this). Anyways… To reward (or at least avoid punishing) those of you who purchase my Lazy Designer books as they are released …

November 30, 2012 – 3:57 pm | By Brent Knowles | Posted in The Lazy Designer | Tagged , , | Comments (4)

How to Script for Games

I’ve made an excerpt from my second Lazy Designer game design book free for the next few days. Download it here. This excerpt is about *scripting* and not stripping (there’s been past confusion and disappointment and for the record I’d just like to point out that I know a lot more about scripting than I …

May 10, 2012 – 7:47 am | By Brent Knowles | Posted in Game Reviews, Second Project, The Lazy Designer | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Lazy Designer Book 2

The second book in the Lazy Designer series is now available. This title explores how to build designer-powered game engines and pipelines as well as prototyping and testing. It can be purchased from Amazon. Later in the year I will make it available on other sites as well (Kobo, Nook, iOS, et cetera). A section …

February 9, 2012 – 9:02 am | By Brent Knowles | Posted in The Lazy Designer, Writing Resources | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Lazy Designer Book 2 Rough Draft Complete

So I have finished the rough draft for the second book in the Lazy Designer series. I’m going to take a couple days off from it and get back to some stories that have been pestering me to be written. Editing will start next week. The current length is 46 000 words. The first book …

January 26, 2012 – 11:36 am | By Brent Knowles | Posted in Game Reviews, The Lazy Designer | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Lazy Designer 2: Feedback on Tools Section

If you have the time to review this section from my forthcoming game design book, I’d appreciate it. Basically I am looking for examples of design tools; I’ve filled in the ones I remember using but I’m sure I have missed some. Tools To assess the types of tools you will need look at similar …

January 23, 2012 – 2:22 pm | By Brent Knowles | Posted in Game Reviews, My Life, The Lazy Designer | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Gamifying Government, an Example of Designer Bias

This is an excerpt from the upcoming second volume in the Lazy Designer series. In the section on deciding which type of game to make I suggested that the bias of the designer, the managers and other key stakeholders in the company, all interact to influence the game. What follows are my thoughts on how …

January 16, 2012 – 3:25 pm | By Brent Knowles | Posted in Game Reviews, The Lazy Designer | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)