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How to be a Lead Designer
The final book in the Lazy Designer game design series is now available. This standalone volume in the Lazy Designer series provides insights on becoming an effective lead designer or creative director. Learn to manage large teams of specialized designers, improve your decision making process, and write clear and usable documentation. http://www.amazon.com/Lead-Designer-Lazy-Game-Design-ebook/dp/B00JUYRB18/ I know I mentioned this last week as part of another post, but every other book has received its own post, and I want to be fair :) And the excerpt for my Amazon Breakthrough Novel quarter finalist, “The Pool”, is still available to read here. I don’t know if reviews/downloads matter much at this point in the…
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Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award & A Story Published
A few notes to pass on for today: 1. My story “Some We Eat and Some We Keep” was just published in Issue #2 of Robot and Raygun. 2. I’ve made it past the first cut in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, which is exciting (it means my pitch was well received). I also still have a couple other novels under consideration elsewhere, including one that a publisher is taking a (longish) second look at. So hopefully some positive news in the future. 3. In game development land, I’m continuing my consulting work, but I’ve also made a couple “big leaps forward*” in regards to a game I’ve been tinkering…
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Table of Contents: Lazy Designer Book 3 – Exploration and Gameplay
I’m sure the crafty reader has figured out my plan, in regards to releasing the Table of Contents for the past books and there is no surprise that today, I reveal the contents of the third book in the Lazy Designer series. Here’s the blurb: Brent Knowles continues his Lazy Designer series with a look at exploration and gameplay. This book covers exploration, environment design, creatures, items, economies, rule system design, and progression systems. Table of Contents Chapter 9 Exploration Exploring Environments Game Types Summary Chapter 10 Creatures Exploring Creatures Game Types Summary Chapter 11 Items Items Finding Items Crafting Improving Items Item Descriptions Extending the Item System Game Types…
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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 I am considering adjusting their prices. Not right now, but down the road when the third and fourth books are complete. What I imagine will happen at that point is that I’m going to want to combine all four books into one convenient (albeit higher priced) book. This was my original intention with the Lazy…
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My Work on Smashwords
Just a quick update. As many of you know I have several story reprints available on Amazon as well as the first two volumes in the Lazy Designer series. Up until now I have also had the same content available on Smashwords. Smashwords is a great service because it distributes work onto multiple platforms, including Apple’s iBooks and Kobo. But as convenient as it is to have Smashwords distribute for me I’m finding that the vast majority of my sales are still occurring on Amazon. And unfortunately, for me at least, the process of getting the Lazy Designer books to work properly with Smashword’s formatting tools has been time consuming.…
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Why I Seldom Write Reviews
Long time readers may have noticed that I used to write reviews somewhat regularly on this site but that I seldom do so anymore. It is not because I’m a lazy bastard. Basically I’ve received a lot of advice (in regards to writing reviews), from the workshops at the Writers of the Future event to more private correspondence and all of it basically suggests that reviewing other writers will only lead to hurt feelings and worse, possibly damaged professional relationships down the road. A writer might be pissed off at a negative review, or that writer’s agent, or that writer’s publisher. So I don’t write many reviews. Of course every…
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Priced to Die
“Why We Should Fear Ourselves More Than Pirates” So now that I’m seeing reports of SOPA and PIPA having been defeated by overwhelming negative opinion many are breathing sighs of relief. And others are cursing violently (but generally silently). Among game developers and writers, my two primary areas of interaction, opinions are mixed. Many are worried about piracy eating into their revenues. For freelance writers and indie game developers it does not take a lot of piracy to put a stranglehold on their revenue stream. Still I think there’s a larger concern than pirates for content creators. Why We Should Fear The $0.99 App and Novel One interesting thing I’ve…
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Novel progress
Even though Nanwrimo ended last week I’m still hard at work on the novel (hence my relative online quietness). I passed 92000 words written yesterday. The end is in sight (though the novel will be a tad longer than originally intended). The novel, for those who are unaware is a continuation of the story started in my story ‘The Prophet’ (originally printed in The End of the Days 2 anthology — the story can be read for free at Amazon ).
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Read This: Digital Rights by Brent Knowles (Writers of the Future Winning Story)
The Assistant responsible for the primary thruster arrangement killed itself just ten days after Izzy arrived on the solar station. The panicked chatter of the other Assistants prevented them from continuing with their own duties. Horror, speculation, and worse of all, wonder, flowed across the station’s network. Izzy had to stop it. And it was her fault; it never should have happened. She had been distracted. Later she would blame the ghost, but for now, she simply reacted. Simply acted. Her body twisted and jerked, her fingers puncturing the holographic displays that surrounded her, initiating commands as she fought for the station’s survival. Earth, beautiful, blue, perfect, floated in front…
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Read: The End of the Road by Brent Knowles
Wanderer looked down in satisfaction as he walked the old mountain road and saw the town below him. The stagnation of the human race was at an end and the survivors were now rebuilding. So ended the apocalypse. Wanderer continued towards this hotel from his past, an old, sprawling structure sitting high atop a cliff, until loud noises from ahead made him pause. A cat’s howl. A woman’s cry. The raucous laughter of boys on the verge of manhood, the cruelest and most dangerous of ages. With a sigh he resumed his pace. He was the Wanderer and he would do what needed doing before doing what he needed. The…
