Category: Design

8th December 2023
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TWELVE DISMAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Welcome, all ye merry souls, to the TWELVE DISMAYS OF CHRISTMAS.

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27th January 2023
12 comments
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BOOK OF HOURS: the Early Draft Edition

BOOK OF HOURS gets an ‘Early Draft’ demo.

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23rd September 2022
5 comments
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The Ragged Crossroads

Update on BOOK OF HOURS and the full Major Arcana of the Lucid Tarot .

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26th August 2022
11 comments
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“Shutter the windows against the sea…”

BOOK OF HOURS has a prototype, a release window and a shiny new face.

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25th June 2021
9 comments
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The Confusion of Tongues

Linguistics quiz! Everyone loves a linguistics quiz.

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26th February 2021
4 comments
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February #2: DAR AL-‘ILM

Ongoing BoH dev. Our February newsletter goes out.

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26th June 2020
30 comments
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June #2: MARINELL

Weather Factory holidaaaaay (and maybe Skeleton Songs ep5 comes out).

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18th February 2020
1 comment
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“What are your influences?”

This is probably the question I’ve been asked most over the years, and every time as soon as I answer it I think of someone

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9th May 2019
1 comment
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Cultist Simulator Updates/Fixes for May: Research makeover!

Finally, you might have noticed that both Skills and HQs are involved in the research mechanic, because this change is what we were leading up to. So high-end Reason and Passion skills now finally have a proper use, and swapping HQs is now a lot more than just flavour.

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4th March 2019
2 comments
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The Interactivity of Reading

The primary form of interactivity while reading is in the mind digesting the text of a book. Actually taking the words on the page and converting them into a full cohesive story in the reader’s mind is an interactive activity. It requires effort from the player and is even a developable skill.

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9th November 2018
1 comment
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Christopher’s Build: The Long March

In January, we’ll be releasing Christopher’s Build, the second major free update to Cultist Simulator. (Anyone following on the beta branch will see some of the updates well before January).

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19th July 2018
3 comments
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Centuries Ago The Dark Lord: when and how to dump

‘Lore dumps.’ It’s not an attractive phrase.

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24th April 2018
1 comment
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The Labyrinth Under the Skin

We took Cultist Simulator to Rezzed a week ago. Player-facing events are really useful for feedback. We got a very, very positive response, but again and again people fiddled with combinations that didn’t work. There’s a lot of trial and error, they said.

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4th April 2018
3 comments
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Writing Pithy Game Microtext: Dactylic Megaliths

[I did this as a tweetstorm, but here it is as promised for people who prefer long form.]

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1st February 2018
7 comments
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“It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in writing start with a name. Give me a name and it produces a story, not the other way about normally.”

“It gives me great pleasure, a good name. I always in writing start with a name.

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9th January 2018
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“I was wondering if you have a specific method of capturing the essence of things that you find emotionally moving through gameplay?”

I give occasional talks to the Game Design/Creative Writing dept at Brunel Uni

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14th June 2017
5 comments
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I’ve stopped talking about quality-based narrative, I’ve started talking about resource narrative

‘QBN’ [quality-based narrative] – I coined this term, but I now wish I hadn’t.

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8th March 2017
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‘On the Progress of Progress’: probably my last Eurogamer column

Actually my title was ‘How Things End’, but I prefer their subhead

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