The time I tried to ruin Halo 2

A former Microsoft user researcher writes about how you can’t always trust the data in front of you

John Hopson, former Microsoft user experience researcher, tells a story from the development of Halo 2. I’d love to get more insights like this into how UX research has shaped game design and what lessons have been learned from it.

This particular case is a reminder that people are often incorrect about what they’ll enjoy, but also and more pointedly a reminder that it’s easy to misconstrue your own data. Research telling you that users expect to dislike a design choice doesn’t tell you that they actually will dislike it. It’s important to design user tests carefully and understand what they actually teach you, lest you confidently lead yourself astray.

Brendan Greene: "It's crazy, the hate I receive. I just have to ignore it"

At Gamelab 2019, Vlambeer's Rami Ismail talked to PUBG's creator about the darker side of making a global phenomenon

Rami Ismail of Vlambeer and Brendan Greene of PUBG discuss some of their experiences with online threats and harassment they’ve received from people who play their games.

It is completely insane that we’ve reached the point where having a successful game means people who are frustrated with bugs or slow updates or design choices will sometimes respond with intimidation or violence and this is just normal. We call it “toxic behavior” or “fan entitlement” and just encourage developers to protect their personal details as best they can. It’s just the price of success.

When We Made... Yooka-Laylee - MCV

Yooka-Laylee has the kind of story that we love to dissect here

Yooka-Laylee is an object lesson in many ways, but most of the focus has been on the customer side - the perspective of the developers is also fascinating and useful. Here, Playtonic discusses their experiences and lessons learned. To me, the key takeaways are:

1. Nostalgic fans may claim they want want something exactly like their old favorites, but they actually want something like how they remember their favorites (which I have said before).
2. Promising specific game features/modes as part of a Kickstarter campaign is incredibly risky because then you can’t revise the design later if it ends up not working very well.

How Zachtronics makes its games so GIFable

Studio founder Zach Barth discusses the beauty of seamless loops, and why screenshots are more important for indies than trailers

For many, a lot of the appeal of creative problem-solving games like those made by Zachtronics comes from being able to share solutions within the community. If packaged well, this can also be an excellent source of grassroots marketing for a game. Given that, it’s surprising that Zachtonics basically stumbled accidentally into letting players export GIFs of their creations.

Zach Barth also notes here how screenshots are often more useful than trailers for actually showing off a game or learning about one, due to less pressure to be cinematic and increasing willingness to show UI, which conveys a lot about what you actually do in a game.

MVP Like Nintendo in 1980

If you work in or around some kind of software development, you’ve probably heard “MVP” sputtered in passing conversation, or seen it scribbled in a comment of a Google Doc. “MVP” is an acronym for “Minimum Viable Product.” The definition of an MVP is a loaded one, and changes

A look at the history and progress of Nintendo’s handheld gaming devices as a shining example of how to think about product vision and iteration.

A GeekDad's Daughter Reinvents Chess

Over on the UK GeekDad blog we’ve been thinking about how we can help our kids get more hands on with the tech, games and gadgets that we love. Mark Changizi just shared this story about how his daughter reinvented the game of chess as plastic animal chess… Recently I sat down with my eight-year-old […]

A short but sweet story about why we should celebrate irreverence and experimentation in game design. Nothing is sacred - not even chess.

Holly Gramazio takes a detailed look at player creativity and expression - why it’s valuable, what gets in the way, and how to get around the barriers and encourage it.

Five game designers each talk about a rule they follow when creating games. There’s good advice and useful concepts here, made even more interesting by each talk clearly being a glimpse at a distinct philosophy and approach with its own goals - some of them even conflict with each other. The varying perspectives are interesting and I’d love to hear more similar talks from people who make very different kinds of games.

Tips & Tricks to manage Open Game Development

Open The Gates! More and more indies are allowing players to have a say about game updates. Maybe you decided to do this aswell, here are some tips & tricks after making 4 open game development games!

Games being developed out in the open through things like Early Access is a relatively new trend and there are still lessons to learn about how to do it effectively. Goblinz Studio have shipped four games this way and share the tips and philosophies they’ve learned along the way.

Jim Sterling takes a comprehensive look at the game difficulty debate. While I think he could bring a little more empathy to bear, he raises virtually every point that I think is important in this debate and handles them well. After all, as he points out, this is not a new debate and we’ve been over these issues multiple times before.