game design Archives - Guido Henkel

Game Design, Games, Programming
A new recipe for the roleplaying game formula

By Guido on February 15, 2017

This article is a repost of a featured blog post I wrote for Gamasutra.com The extinction of computer roleplaying games seemed inevitable by the mid-1990s, a time when publishers almost uniformly dropped the genre. High development costs and long development cycles made them risky propositions, especially since they catered to a niche audience and therefore never generated the same shareholder-pleasing… Continue reading "A new recipe for the roleplaying game formula"
Game Design, Games, Programming
To Build a Better Game

By Guido on January 26, 2017

For 30-odd years I have been developing computer games. Over that period of time, I have seen many changes, both in technology as well as in general game design. As I look back, however, I find that things are not always just moving forward, as we blindly assume. It pays to look back on occasion, to learn from the lessons… Continue reading "To Build a Better Game"
Games, Programming
When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 3

By Guido on October 3, 2016

This post is part of a three-part series. Directly access each installment here Part I • Part II • Part III Now that we know how to create a grammar context and how to reference different GrammarAttr objects in our parameter list, as shown in last week’s simple example sentences, let’s take a look at more complex scenarios. The nazgûl… Continue reading "When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 3"
Games, Programming
When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 2

By Guido on September 26, 2016

This post is part of a three-part series. Directly access each installment here Part I • Part II • Part III In the last installment I illustrated the immediate difficulties game designers run into when they try to dynamically create text output that takes random game objects into account. Grammar gets in the way… Today I want to show you… Continue reading "When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 2"
Games, Programming
When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 1

By Guido on September 20, 2016

This post is part of a three-part series. Directly access each installment here Part I • Part II • Part III One of the key elements in your toolbox when developing role-playing or adventure games is a smart text generation stage that allows you to intelligently create dynamic text strings on the fly so that you can embed item names,… Continue reading "When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 1"

Tag: game design

A new recipe for the roleplaying game formula

To Build a Better Game

When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 3

When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 2

When simple text generation is simply not enough: Part 1