Everyone still reading this --
@Play will be resuming. Repeat, @Play is resuming. Update schedule and precise timing hasn't determined yet, but I'm thinking twice a month.
It's looking like I'm resuming the blog here, so if you're still following or have this in your RSS feed then you have nothing more to do. However, if you're a publisher and want @Play on your site, please let me know at johnwh(at)gmail.com and we can talk things over.
Even if no one bites, @Play will be resuming, here if not elsewhere. If it does turn out to be elsewhere, then this blog will resume pointing to new columns as they appear. I'll also be tweeting links to new columns: my Twitter handle is @rodneylives, but be warned I also tweet things that are of no relevance to roguelikes (I have an upsettingly large number of interests). I'll also be using hashtag #atplay. I may start a second account just for @Play notices, but am not yet sure what that entails.
I trailed off before because I was coming to suspect that I didn't have much more substantive to say, and so was coming to resort, more and more often, to filler. But now I think I have more that I can usefully contribute. The recent boom of games calling themselves roguelikes and quasi-roguelikes means I could probably sustain the column for a good while on the strength of reviews alone, but I've developed my opinions a little more on what makes the games fun, and of course there's at least one very nice newer "classic-style" roguelike out there now in the form of Brogue. And of course, "roguelike" in its broadest sense is just a word that means a game presents interesting procedural content, and that's something more games are finding it useful to provide.
Anyway, please watch this space.
A collection of John Harris' various columns, articles and other game-related writing.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Sunday, March 20, 2011
@Play 78: Another of those little projects...
@Play 78
One of the little things I've been working on, like, during the long hours when I'm not working on @Play, has lately been a roguelike encyclopedia. Not like Wikipedia, or even the many game specific wikis, this would primarily be a work that would relate, in a way, all the major games to each other. So, for example, an entry on POTIONS would give their general place in roguelikes and roguelike design, then might give more interesting examples from some of the major games. Some other stuff would be in there as well. Some of the entries I figured might look interesting generally, and were entertaining to write at least, so I turned some of them into @Play #78.
Next time... I'm thinking it's been a while since I had a look at the output of 7DRL. There are so many cool and awesome games to come out of that. A couple of years ago I played almost all of the 7DRL games that year and wrote something on all of them for @Play. Unfortunately that ended up taking much too long to finish, so I'm probably only going to focus on highlights this time out.
One of the little things I've been working on, like, during the long hours when I'm not working on @Play, has lately been a roguelike encyclopedia. Not like Wikipedia, or even the many game specific wikis, this would primarily be a work that would relate, in a way, all the major games to each other. So, for example, an entry on POTIONS would give their general place in roguelikes and roguelike design, then might give more interesting examples from some of the major games. Some other stuff would be in there as well. Some of the entries I figured might look interesting generally, and were entertaining to write at least, so I turned some of them into @Play #78.
Next time... I'm thinking it's been a while since I had a look at the output of 7DRL. There are so many cool and awesome games to come out of that. A couple of years ago I played almost all of the 7DRL games that year and wrote something on all of them for @Play. Unfortunately that ended up taking much too long to finish, so I'm probably only going to focus on highlights this time out.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
@Play 77: Rules of roguelike design
@Play #77
It's been over two months since the last column, a state that I blame on general poor spirits, personal projects and (to a degree) the twin scourges of Minecraft and Desktop Dungeons. The next column shouldn't take nearly as long, as it will consist mostly of excerpts of one of those personal projects, an encyclopedia of roguelike games. (Which complete document will probably go for sale on Lulu or Amazon or some such.)
I should note that the title, "The Eight Rules of Roguelike Design," was not my idea. I don't think there are only eight, or as many as eight, or whatever. I have eight listed in the column but I think it's fairly obvious from the introduction that I don't actually consider them particularly hard rules, although if you break one you should know what you're doing, certainly. I intended it as a kind of guide to how these games work to provide interesting game choices. Rogue in particular shows a lot of nuance in that area, which indicates to me that the developers must have spent a lot of time devising it.
It's been over two months since the last column, a state that I blame on general poor spirits, personal projects and (to a degree) the twin scourges of Minecraft and Desktop Dungeons. The next column shouldn't take nearly as long, as it will consist mostly of excerpts of one of those personal projects, an encyclopedia of roguelike games. (Which complete document will probably go for sale on Lulu or Amazon or some such.)
I should note that the title, "The Eight Rules of Roguelike Design," was not my idea. I don't think there are only eight, or as many as eight, or whatever. I have eight listed in the column but I think it's fairly obvious from the introduction that I don't actually consider them particularly hard rules, although if you break one you should know what you're doing, certainly. I intended it as a kind of guide to how these games work to provide interesting game choices. Rogue in particular shows a lot of nuance in that area, which indicates to me that the developers must have spent a lot of time devising it.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
@Play 76: A first rule of roguelike design
@Play 76
When you die in a roguelike, is it your fault? Not always. This column offers the beginning of a framework for determining whether it is or not, by thinking about the game in a way analogous to checkmate in chess. The move that puts you into a situation in which you might die is the bad one.
At the end of the column I mention the possibility that one might formulate a set of laws of roguelike game design. I've so far come up with six of these. They'll be covered in more detail next time.
Posts are still fairly slow. I fell away from gaming for a bit back there, and am working on a new game project at the moment, and I have a final paper to finish, and other things are conspiring against me and my free time too.
When you die in a roguelike, is it your fault? Not always. This column offers the beginning of a framework for determining whether it is or not, by thinking about the game in a way analogous to checkmate in chess. The move that puts you into a situation in which you might die is the bad one.
At the end of the column I mention the possibility that one might formulate a set of laws of roguelike game design. I've so far come up with six of these. They'll be covered in more detail next time.
Posts are still fairly slow. I fell away from gaming for a bit back there, and am working on a new game project at the moment, and I have a final paper to finish, and other things are conspiring against me and my free time too.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
@Play 75: And now, more Dungeon Crawl
@Play 75
Getting us back onto our usual beat, this month-half's column concerns the extra game mode packed into recent versions of Crawl, Dungeon Sprint. It features mostly set, human-constructed levels, and features even tougher opponents than is usual for Dungeon Crawl, but in exchange has 27x greater experience gain. Not only is it a much shorter game than Crawl, but it's great for figuring out strategies that work against advanced opponents without having to risk throwing away a six-hour game just to experiment with tactics to use against, say, demon summoners. Give it a shot!
Getting us back onto our usual beat, this month-half's column concerns the extra game mode packed into recent versions of Crawl, Dungeon Sprint. It features mostly set, human-constructed levels, and features even tougher opponents than is usual for Dungeon Crawl, but in exchange has 27x greater experience gain. Not only is it a much shorter game than Crawl, but it's great for figuring out strategies that work against advanced opponents without having to risk throwing away a six-hour game just to experiment with tactics to use against, say, demon summoners. Give it a shot!
Monday, September 20, 2010
@Play 74: The last time I swear
@Play 74
The second of the two posts about Mayflight is up on GameSetWatch. I hope it hasn't seemed as obnoxiously self-promotional to you guys as it has to me. Additionally, this one is more about implementation algorithms and my wanting to document them somewhere for possible later use than anything else.
I spent three and a half months working on the thing, to the exclusion of almost everything else, and I don't think it's really good enough for all the effort I put into it. That is the great difficulty with the indie gaming sphere: you can work and work and work on something and still have it end up only so-so.
Next time, I absolutely swear, @Play will cover something else. I'm gearing up to write about Dungeon Crawl's new alternate play mode, Dungeon Sprint, which is suitably infuriating.
The second of the two posts about Mayflight is up on GameSetWatch. I hope it hasn't seemed as obnoxiously self-promotional to you guys as it has to me. Additionally, this one is more about implementation algorithms and my wanting to document them somewhere for possible later use than anything else.
I spent three and a half months working on the thing, to the exclusion of almost everything else, and I don't think it's really good enough for all the effort I put into it. That is the great difficulty with the indie gaming sphere: you can work and work and work on something and still have it end up only so-so.
Next time, I absolutely swear, @Play will cover something else. I'm gearing up to write about Dungeon Crawl's new alternate play mode, Dungeon Sprint, which is suitably infuriating.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
@Play 73: Mayflight again
@Play #73, on my own randomly-generated game, Mayflight
Yeah, @Play is back, but it's about the game I've already introduced, which is relevant to roguelikes in both inspiration and implementation detail. In this column I cover the inspiration part of it; in the next, I talk about how it was implemented, which may provide an algorithm or two of interest to roguelike developers. After that we'll be back on the usual beat, so if you're annoyed with all this talk about platformers and such you don't have much longer to wait!
Yeah, @Play is back, but it's about the game I've already introduced, which is relevant to roguelikes in both inspiration and implementation detail. In this column I cover the inspiration part of it; in the next, I talk about how it was implemented, which may provide an algorithm or two of interest to roguelike developers. After that we'll be back on the usual beat, so if you're annoyed with all this talk about platformers and such you don't have much longer to wait!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)