I'd have to say the single biggest thing I learned about game design this semester is how to compromise. I've been in several game design classes before, but I've always either worked alone, or made all of the design decision for the group. Sure, I've let other people use their ideas before, but only if I liked them better than my own in the first place. This was the first time the group went against what I thought would be the best design decision, and you know what? It didn't turn out so bad after all. I originally came up... Continue reading

Scared of 'em. No joke. I already spend too much time playing Xbox LIVE. I've heard so many stories of people getting addicting to MMORPGs (including my cousin, who's failed out of college twice now b/c of the 'addiction') that I just avoid them like the plague. I'm sure I'd love World of Warcarft, but that's exactly why I won't play it. So, for this assignment, I'm still not going to play any MMORPGs, and instead I'll write about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Before you make any assumptions, though, know that Modern Warfare 2 actually fits into many... Continue reading

To be honest, I don't really know a whole lot of women who play "hardcore" video games. I mean, my mom's been known to play Solitaire on her iPhone for hours, but I'm talking about games made for gamers. My little sister is actually the only woman I know who owns and Xbox 360, which has to be the most testosterone-laden console of the big 3 right now. She even has her own $50/year Xbox LIVE Gold membership (which she mostly uses for Netflix streaming). So, what kind of Xbox games does she own? Well, she has Halo 3 and... Continue reading

While I was reading that Sustainable Play, I kept thinking to myself, "Hey, we played that in class;" so, I figured I might as well analyze the games with which I have personal experience.The first was probably my favorite (strangely enough, the students in the paper seemed to like it the best as well), Rock, Paper, Scissors Tag. Since we all played it, I'll skip the description. RPST (that's what all the cool kids are calling it) was fun because there wasn't really much of an endgame. Sure, the idea was to go on a winning streak so that your... Continue reading

People don't often quote video games like they do movies or television, but Star Fox 64 was one of those rare quotable games. It had some freakin' sweet gameplay, too. It was also, to my knowledge, the first console game to feature rumble, which has now become standard. The game came with a Rumble Pak that you'd plug into the bottom of that monstrosity known as the N64 controller, and the thing added some serious kick to your gaming experience. To this day, Star Fox 64 still stands as the greatest rail-shooter of all time in my opinion (though I... Continue reading

There's a story in the Shah-nameh about how Chess was invented for the queen of India. She had two sons vying for the throne, and when one died, she suspected that it was at the hands of the other. The story has it that the sages of the kingdom developed the chess board to show that her son had in fact died of battle fatigue. This version of the invention of Chess describes the game as essentially being invented to demonstrate to a woman how a man died on a battlefield. This tale seems say that real battle is for... Continue reading