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The Long Dark
Instead of talking (just) about my prototype work, I’d like to mention a Kickstarter for a former coworker. Dave Chan was the sound guy for a significant portion of my time with BioWare and he’s joined Hinterland games to make THE LONG DARK: a first-person post-disaster survival simulation set in the Northern wilderness. How far will you go to survive? If this sounds interesting to you, please support it by kicking some funds to it, or sharing it. In regards to my own prototype work, this was a slower than average week as I’m undoing a bunch of code that was working before to make it work differently. I do…
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Lazy on Kobo too
Just another reminder that the first two Lazy Designer books are also available for Kobo devices (for those of you who have those devices instead of Kindles). Lazy Designer Book 1: How to Start a Career in Game Design Lazy Designer Book 2: Making the Next Game
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Exploration and Gameplay
As was probably obvious given the posts earlier in the month, the third book in the Lazy Designer series is now available for Kindle. I was a bit distracted with talking about a couple stories I’ve had published recently — which, if you have not read my story ‘Slaying Dragons’ in Plasma Frequency Magazine, you still can — and vote for it, if you enjoy it! Anyways, here’s a link to the table of Contents. And here’s the blurb: Brent Knowles continues his Lazy Designer series with a look at exploration and gameplay. From environment design to combat to building rule systems, Brent examines how to craft quality design. And…
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Game Design Scripting — Free Excerpt
Over on the Kindle my scripting excerpt from Book 2 of the Lazy Designer series is free (until end of week). Downloading a copy will give you an idea of the content available in the Lazy Designer books. International Links: UK Canada Germany France Italy Spain Japan Brazil * Remember, you don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books! You just need appropriate desktop software (or apps, for mobile phones and iOS devices) Buy in the UK Canada Germany France Italy Spain Japan Brazil Buy in the UK Canada Germany France Italy Spain Japan Brazil Buy in the UK Canada Germany France Italy Spain Japan Brazil
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Table of Contents – Lazy Designer: How to Start a Career in Game Design
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Table of Contents – Lazy Designer: How to Start a Career in Game Design
I don’t think I have ever posted the table of contents for any of the Lazy Designer books, so figured I would rectify that now. Here’s what is inside the first book in the Lazy Designer series. First, the blurb: Practical advice on starting a career in the video game industry and improving your design skills. This is your opportunity to learn from the lead designer of such commercial and critically successful video games as Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins. Discover how the author started his career, the pitfalls he encountered and how he overcame them. Written by an industry veteran with over ten years experience working for a…
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Game Design Scripting — Free Excerpt
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Just Like Old Times…
Lazy Designer Book 3 is almost ready to go. I’m just reviewing the uploaded copy on the Kindle Previewer. I’m treating this much like I would treat the release of a game. As I go through the near-final draft I’m spot-fixing any poorly worded phrases I encounter, in the source material, but unless I encounter a major error, this will be the text that is uploaded. *If* I do hit major error then I’ll regenerate the book and start the review process over. Glad to be nearing the end of this. I cut a lot of words during editing but it still sits at over 70 000 words, almost twice…
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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 had with me and some other BioWarians at the time.
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Update!
I’ve been super busy (and not distracted at all by the spring weather), but here’s a brief update. Edits on the third book in the Lazy Designer series are going well, albeit slower than I anticipated. This is partly because I’m about to release a _software thingy_ (not a game). I’m also preparing a story for an anthology submission, which has taken time away from finishing the edits (and I discovered Minecraft). My plan now is for edits to be finished by end of April and I’ve started rough draft work on book four (Story and Character in Videogames). Once the third book is released I’m taking a break from…
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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 (now available on Amazon). Doors Doors seem simple, at least in our real world (unless you’ve ever had to install them) but they can cause numerous headaches in a videogame, unless well designed. The rules governing their behavior must be mapped out, from how they interact with visiblity, to how player controlled creatures and NPCs use them. Perception The most logical use of a door is to…
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Not Another Lego Picture
Still no real news to report so here’s a bit of a status update. First, progress on the Lazy Designer Book 3 is slow. And it has decided to reproduce. This is the book on gameplay and it seems that I have more to say on the subject than I initially imagined. I have almost reached the 80 000 word mark on it (book 2 was about 50 000). Given the size of this book I am going to split off the section on story/character (which was intended to be part of this volume) into its own book (becoming book 4 of the Lazy Designer series). My intent is to…
