Dr. Bitsy-Love, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Small Projects

Hmmm, I seem to remember having a blog... whatever happened to-

Oh.  Oops.

Yeah, to say the least it's been a minute or so since my last post.  But, hey, I've been doing lots of stuff and accumulating things to write about and share so why not hop back into my bloggin' shoes and talk about what's up?

Let's start with the journey I took in making several games using Bitsy.

A (Relatively) Short Dissection of Rocket Knight Adventures, My Favorite Game

I write a lot about game design on this blog.  I write about how to do it right, how to do it wrong, and why certain concepts are really important to consider.

Now, considering how much I perseverate on these topics, you might be wondering what the ideal is for me.  Sure, I've brought up some games I really like, such as Super Mario Brothers 3, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Saint's Row: The Third...

But what is the ideal?

The ideal is Rocket Knight Adventures on the Sega Genesis.

Let's start

Do NPCs In Video Games Really Die?

Mortal Kombat

Since the early 90's, old people who had no idea what video games are and Florida lawyers who are willing to spin the grief of parents who have lost their children to violent crimes to make a quick buck have tried to question the issue of violence in video games.  I mean, it's undeniable that video games depict a lot of simulated death.

Now, those disrespectful politicians and opportunists who I mentioned above have tried to rattle our ears with the concept that our brains can't understand the differences between reality and video games; that these video games will rot our minds and turn us into killers.

Half-Life 2

Those crusty old farts are full of it.  We know that now.

But, what if we actually are all killers?  What if those virtual characters, packed with "AI", are actually living things that we're killing?

Mario Maker: Know this about bad levels

Image courtesy of IGN

Mario Maker recently released for the Nintendo Wii U, and dang do I love games like this!  Even back to when I bought the PS3 for the express reason of playing Little Big Planet, or further back when the only thing on my 3rd grade Christmas list was Jazz Jackrabbit 2 so I could play with the Jazz Creation Station, my love of level editors would likely receive a large chapter in the biography that nobody is going out of their way to write about me (yet).

Putting game design in the hands of the player gives the actor the chance to play director for a while, and I feel like this gives a great deal of perspective to gamers that they don't always get.

And sometimes it just results in terrible levels.  What gives?

Feeling Your Game

Anybody who graces themselves with the title of "gamer" knows a thing or two about the term "game feel," or at least have heard it mentioned.  Game feel is a pretty apt name for the concept- literally, how a game feels when you are playing it.  So, how does your game feel?

No, no... not like that

I want for this blog to be more than just a promotion for my projects, but a chance to discuss some ideas about developing games, so I'm going to initiate that conversation by talking about game feel a bit, as well as how I think that it really impacts a gaming experience.