Since I posted How to not fail at Kickstarter in 12 easy steps last April, a lot more people have come to me seeking advice–and as a direct result, my list has grown. The time has come for another article, one with even more tips and tricks for funding your game. Lest you think this […]

I’ve been seeing a lot of failed indie RPG crowdfunding campaigns lately. It’s hardly a new phenomenon, though, and it’s not unique to RPGs: last September, Kickstarter reported that less than 1 in 4 video game campaigns were funded successfully over the preceding months. Personally, I think that stinks–so I’m writing this article in an […]

This article by Lars Doucet contains good lessons for how to make a living distributing your games. It breaks down Defender’s Quest’s (significant) sales numbers by source, and is therefore of primary interest to indie game developers–but it contains valuable lessons for the player as well. Among other things, Mr. Doucet makes a compelling argument […]

I post this here mostly because I think it’s an interesting exploration of two different approaches taken by two indie strategy RPGs. A relevant snippet: This difference in focus has knock-on effects that resonate down to even the smallest choices in the mechanics each game features. For instance: Wesnoth uses a zone of control mechanic […]

Last night was election night, which means that it was a pretty late night for me. Luckily, I still managed to finish up a pretty massive article I’d been working on concerning the uses and abuses of randomization as a way to create unpredictability in turn-based RPG combat systems. Here is a snippet: A cunning […]

Hello, gentle readers! Yesterday, I released a brand new (and quite long) article about the evolution (and design implications) of skill-based character creation systems in RPGs. A snippet: To revisit the computer analogy from earlier: it is easy to find a good Apple computer because it only comes in a few configurations, and it is […]

Brian Abbott, perhaps best known as the titular brainy gamer behind Brainy Gamer, has posted an opinion piece on what makes jRPGs special. A good JRPG (any well-designed RPG, for that matter) envelops a player in a unified ecosystem that weaves together rules, mechanics, and storytelling such that each informs the other in the player’s […]

Or, as I somewhat-less-tactfully put it on my developer website: “So you created an action RPG. Stop congratulating yourself.” You may have heard about the recent (and highly unfortunate) Gamasutra interview with Matt Findley, in which the former Black Isle dev announced that turn-based RPGs were basically an unfortunate accident of history caused by limitations […]