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.

WoW Classic reminds us of all we've lost | Opinion

Nostalgia for an earlier version of Blizzard's MMO is a stark reminder of how much of gaming's creative history continues to be lost entirely

Most of us are numb by now to the frequent loss of entire digital worlds as online or live-service games are shut down, but here Rob Fahey explains how the success of WoW Classic serves as proof of just how much value is constantly being destroyed. Major game publishers pushing towards games-as-a-service or streaming-only distribution is making preservation less and less possible, and we all lose as a result.

The Decade-Long Quest For Shadow of the Colossus' Last Secret

a mystery which will never happen again, a miracle which has never happened before- and shining this our now must come to then

A thought-provoking look at faith, knowledge, and fandom through the lens of video game classic Shadow of the Colossus.

GDC Europe: Obsidian's Five Hard Lessons Of RPG Design

In a talk at GDC Europe J.E. Sawyer, project director for Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout New Vegas) discussed the "challenges that the RPG industry has faced in adapting from its pen and paper roots."

Back in 2011, Obsidian Entertainment’s J.E. Sawyer laid out some hard lessons about RPG design and argued for moving away from then-prevalent assumptions about how RPGs worked. It’s interesting to revisit this with several years of hindsight and I’d say he’s been vindicated by history.