Category: Design

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
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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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9th September 2016
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What I’ve just done to Stellaris: seven more things

I’m winding up a wagon-load of work on Paradox’s Stellaris. This is about what I wrote, and what I learnt while I was writing it.

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7th September 2016
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BY ZOMBIES

Anyone who has ever considered writing for a living will have heard Opinions about the Passive Voice.

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31st August 2016
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Get a Cat, or, Why More Content Won’t Save Your Game

[Note: I was creative director and lead writer on Sunless Sea, but I’ve left Failbetter and I can’t speak to my old muckers’ future plans.]

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3rd August 2016
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Cultist Simulator: recipes and bumping brains

This is a post about the Cultist Simulator systems, and also why you shouldn’t stay too deep in a bunker when you’re working enthusiastically on an idea.

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22nd June 2016
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“The Healing Question”

Earlier this week, [a carefully unspecified number of] players completed the Seeking Mr Eaten’s Name quest line, an epic and long-awaited storyline in Fallen London which ends with the player character’s deliberate self-destruction.

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18th June 2016
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‘Embed the ending in the middle, or crush it up and stir it into the rest of the game.’

My Eurogamer column specifically, but not exclusively, the problems on endings in Fallen London.

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