Not, in fact, dead April 14, 2009
Posted by Ian in Creative Agenda, Simulationist, Small Idea.add a comment
Nor even taking a break from nerdly endeavors like game design. I’m just quietly trying to put together a game that operates as much as possible within the confines of the game’s fiction, that incorporates ‘mechanical’ elements into the fiction, ideally in a kind of non-disruptive way.
If it keeps shaping up nicely, I’ll start to talk more about it.
This seems faintly familiar… March 19, 2009
Posted by Ian in Creative Agenda, Game Design, Personal Reflection, Simulationist.add a comment
I’ve been fiddling around with Uns in some of my spare time and trying to figure our how to relate the spatial and temporal elements of the game. It is not too complicated, really, but when I was thinking through the discrete spatial locations and movement between them, I kept having this faint sense of familiarity. It was like I was mimicking something I couldn’t quite remember.
Character ownership (comedy, epic, tragedy) February 26, 2009
Posted by Ian in Applied, Creative Agenda, Game Design, Personal Reflection, Simulationist.add a comment
As I think about what it might look like to play Uns, I keep wondering about this issue of character ownership. Superficially, the game is all about the character ownership. There is one player, one main character, and everything basically happens for the sake of them.
But that really doesn’t capture what the game is about. The rigid constraints of the module system (here are the places you can go, period) makes any sense of ownership more limited. The character serves as a screen to be drawn through the setting, an organizing element that structures play, helps narrow down what can or ought to happen where.
