While we certainly value innovation in the games industry, it’s fair to say that many areas of game design are stuck in their ways: people know what they want, and designers try their hardest to…
Category: <span>The Saturday Papers</span>
The Saturday Paper – That, But Bigger
Procedural content generation isn’t just about bits of code that run silently and invisible inside games while players play them. The power of procedural generation, exploring a huge, near-infinite space of content, is also a…
The Saturday Paper – A World Just For You
Which is more important – story or setting? In some games, particularly RPGs, it feels almost impossible to separate one from the other. Setting dictates the where, the when and the how of the game.…
The Saturday Paper: Wherever Whenever
We like to believe that because we play games we understand how players think. This filters into every aspect of game development – imagining how players will react to seeing this, hearing that, being here…
The Saturday Paper: Words, Sounds and Pegasi
One of the most wonderful things about videogames is how they bring together different mediums into one collective effort. Art, music, writing, design as well as programming itself are all hugely creative endeavours in their…
The Saturday Paper: Goldilocks And The Three Puzzles
A puzzle, yesterday. With thanks to Gunpoint. Most procedural generators have it pretty easy. Generation techniques for content like dungeon layouts or 3D worlds can’t really fail – they proceed very steadily, laying down content…
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The Saturday Paper: Use NEW IDEA On GENRE
Puzzles in videogames, especially point-and-click adventures, are strange things. Mysteries and puzzles in movies are all about ingenuity, wits and thinking outside of the box. In games, though, they’re about working out what the designer…
The Saturday Paper: Dungeon Feng Shui
Level design is a tricky business. As you creep around Dunwall or drive through Liberty City, you’re influenced by the architecture, the passageways, the placement of other characters and the location of treasure. Handcrafted levels…
The Saturday Paper: Minecraft and Monet
Procedural content generation is a popular piece of technology, to say the least. From Minecraft’s rolling hills to Dwarf Fortress’ intricate world histories, we love games that can generate parts of themselves each time we…
The Saturday Paper: Making Magic (Spells)
Depictions of character classes in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion If you’ve ever played a role-playing game, from Final Fantasy V to Skyrim, you’ll know that the genre loves its tropes. From orcs and goblins…