This blog post by James Margaris is kind of two articles in one, but I like them both. First, he looks at the value of alignment between a game’s mechanics (what you do and how it works) and its theming (how things are presented and framed) - mechanics are much easier to grasp intuitively if they match the theming. Next, he explains how most discussion about ludonarrative dissonance is not framed usefully and that the real problem people are pointing to is usually one of tonal dissonance that is more about the narrative than the ludo.

Two Hat: Stop tweaking your game and start fixing your community

Security expert Two Hat teams up with Image Analyzer to tackle harmful online content and toxic communities

Toxic behavior in social media and similar platforms is not a new problem, but it’s worth pointing out that there are financial as well as ethical incentives for platform-owners to improve it. You can increase engagement through endless A/B tested UI tweaks, but you might be better off improving your community.

Key quote: “[P]eople are 300% more likely to never return to games or platforms where they experienced toxic behaviour. Conversely, players are three times more likely to return after positive interactions.”

Let's revisit Final Fantasy X ! Anyone?

Games remember who we were when we played them. Leigh Alexander revisits Final Fantasy X -- and puzzles over the lost heyday of big Japanese roleplaying games.

The same game can affect players wildly differently depending where they are in their own life when they play it. For all its flaws, and whether or not you think it holds up today, Final Fantasy X matters a lot to people like me who played it and loved it in our late adolescence. In this wonderful, personal, heartbreaking piece, Leigh Alexander explains why.

Halo 2 Changed The Way I Look At Games

Halo 2 is special game to me for many different reasons. It provided hours and hours of immeasurable fun and it pushed me to be more creative by allowing me ...

YouTuber Razbuten discusses how experimentation with custom modes in Halo 2 taught him to see games differently - not just as products to be passively consumed but toyboxes to be actively explored, resulting in limit-testing to find ways to play that can be even more fun than anything the designers came up with.

I wish I’d had this available to reference when I wrote my article about going beyond intended experiences - I absolutely would have quoted and linked to it.

Ian Sundstrom discusses the value of “play artifacts” - things created by players in the process of playing a game that can then be reviewed, saved, or shared. He lists several widely-varied examples from particular games, and observes that it seems to be a growing trend - and since then we’ve seen a proliferation of high-profile games with photo modes and consoles with screenshot or sharing buttons as well.

What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games

About a year ago, my wife asked if she could play a game. Instead of simply saying yes, I decided to run an informal experiment where I had her play a sampli...

YouTuber Razbuten watched his non-gamer wife try several popular games and the results were fascinating. There are useful implications for game designers (regarding tutorials, player feedback, and how and when to present information to the player) as well as for anybody trying to help a non-gamer get into games.

It’s easy for those of us who’ve been playing games for a long time to take our game literacy for granted. But many common UX conventions are explained poorly if at all in modern titles, putting up an immediate wall for new players and making it hard to get into games without help.

ErotiSim: Sex and The Sims

It was the phone calls that made me certain. The Sims was going to cross over, one way or another. I worked in a cramped games magazine office for just shy of

The broad appeal of The Sims has always been fascinating, but it’s always had a lurid undertone as well. This 2007 article by Kieron Gillen unpacks that, examining how The Sims functions as a particularly effective safe space to explore, experiment with, and work through interpersonal issues, especially in the fraught areas of romance and sexuality. (It’s also one of a small handful of classic articles that demonstrated to me that it is interesting and worthwhile to write about games and which inspired me to start Pixel Poppers.)

It’s easy to forget how to explain the appeal of your game to outsiders who haven’t been immersed in it the way you have. Victoria Tran of Kitfox Games provides a clear and helpful set of guidelines on what to focus on and what you’ll need to know to frame your value proposition effectively.

Every game should copy Death Stranding’s “Very Easy Mode”

Not every player wants to suffer through gatekeeping challenges just to see a game.

Kyle Orland shows how the upcoming Death Stranding’s “Very Easy Mode” is just the latest high-profile instance of an ongoing and laudable trend of increased options making games more approachable and accessible for players with different skill levels and interests.

Ustwo: Apple Arcade "unshackles the finances" from mobile gaming

The developer of Monument Valley and Apple Arcade launch title Assemble With Care on the benefits of subscriptions

The current state of mobile gaming has incentives that have resulted in strange, harmful expectations about how games are and should be priced. It’s still very early days for Apple Arcade, but I’m excited to see whether it can undo the damage and usher in a golden age of mobile gaming.

In this interview with GamesIndustry.biz, chief creative officer Dan Gray and lead designer Joel Beardshaw from Ustwo Games (creators of Monument Valley and more) discuss their own experiences and how liberating it is to be part of a subscription model where the player isn’t thinking about individual games in terms of price.