Donkey Kong Bananza is a game that gets the closest I’ve seen to recreating the Pixar narrative formula via game design.  I’ve been on...

Getting to see Louisiana in a video game was going to elicit a strong response from me no matter the content, given I was born there, but...

20 Years ago, when I was little more than foreshadowing, I played something that sparked my interests in storytelling through video...

Something games historically struggle with is maintaining a coherent theme across all the various threads they must weave in their world....

In writing a novel, you’re often given advice that you must Show rather than Tell. This advice is given because if you show the objective...

Frequent readers of this blog will no doubt know me for my deranged compare and contrast analyses and OH BOY AM I EVER ON ONE TODAY!! Hi...

In Breath of the Wild, we get a simple introduction to the world of Hyrule and how it is under assault by Ganon. We are told that years...

Majora’s Mask is perhaps the most fascinating Zelda title in a series of excellent games. That’s not to say it’s better than the others,...

Last time I did a compare and contrast, it was Mario vs Armored Core in my unhinged attempt to pick apart the broad stroke differences...

People talk a lot about nonviolent games. Indie devs of all kinds take it on themselves to rebel against the status quo and make the...

Roguelike games are built on a premise of trying to reach the bottom of a dungeon (either literal or metaphorical) by building up powers,...

In past blog posts I have analyzed the game mechanics of Magic the Gathering to better understand how that game tells us about its...

Elden Ring is the latest in a series of extremely cryptic games from Hidetaki Miyazaki and the team at FromSoftware. Their worlds are...

Recently I’ve been investigating quest structures and design styles of many different open worlds in other media, which led me to do an...

After my recent explorations of quest design structure in various games, and trying to apply that to various films and tv shows, I have...

So a few months ago I wrote a blog post about verb directions in game design and how player abilities are interacted with in direct...

Humans are not trees. It’s a radical statement to make, I know, but try to bear with me while I explain this difficult concept! Humans,...

A few months ago I looked at verb design in other media and as part of that blog post I briefly dipped into Magic: The Gathering, but...

There are days when a man must open his eyes and choose to punch the old gods in the face. There are days which demand violence. Today is...