The first post
Saturday, 080726
If you have not already figured it out, this is a blog about game design, with a slight focus on video games. I have had an interest in game design and working in the game business for quite a while now, and I have discovered if I write down any ideas I have I think a lot more critically about them. So I decided to put up all the things I write here, and if someone from the Internet would like to comment my ramblings, so much better.
This blog is will not chronicle my life or contain irrelevant stories about the well-being of my cat (if I had one), but perhaps a small introduction is in order. I am a young male who took the gaming alias Mrop from a fictional television show that played a minor role in a book I wrote with a friend in fourth to sixth grade. During this time, I also started dungeon mastering my very own role playing game, even though I did not know what a dungeon master was or had seen any form of traditional role playing game. Now, many years later, I have finally convinced two of my friends to write a game together in Flash, but the project progresses slowly at the moment.
I will try to write a new post each weekend, and next week will see the premier of a series of posts about how the classic board game Risk can be improved.
Interesting blog you’ve got here.
I say “interesting” because a) “interesting” is an awesome, neutral word that sounds good without telling the reader anything and b) I have a tremendous interest in game design.
Of course, I don’t have any real expertise in it. I’m not a heavy gamer. I’ve never designed a game. But that doesn’t stop me from having really strong opinions on what makes a good game and what doesn’t.
That being said, I’ll be reading!
To be honest, I am quite inexperienced myself when it comes to creating games (but don’t tell anyone!). I’ve read a handful of books, read some articles, programmed a few games. Even so, your flattery is appreciated. I will be tag-surfing for “game design”, so if you ever think of making up a game yourself (even if it is a small card game), I will probably read your posts about it.
If I only had the ability to create decent graphics, I would. Coding, I can do. Designing, I can do. Graphics… uh…
There are a lot of games that are made by people who can’t draw. The early builds of Braid, when there was no artist involved, featured only simple shapes and some crude sprites. After the game became well known, Jonathan Blow found himself an artist who “painted over” his fully functional game.