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Design Journal #7 – Dissecting a System (RTS Games)

     Truth be told, I don't really play RTS games, but I have played one game I've seen classified as one (or at least as something with a lot of overlap), and that is Pikmin 2 for the Nintendo GameCube.      The systems of Pikmin 2 center around the eponymous Pikmin, small plant-like aliens of whom the protagonists, Olimar and Louie, can command up to 100 at once in real time as they explore the planet they find themselves on. These critters are the primary objects the player interacts with in the game, and nearly all other objects are defined by the ways in which they and Pikmin interact with each other. Among these objects are... Enemies , who can both harm and be harmed by Pikmin, and who, when slain, turn into... Pikmin food , which includes dead enemies and colored pellets found growing from certain treasures. Pikmin can carry Pikmin food back to the "Onions" at the player's home base and converted into more Pikmin. More on this in a bit. Unique Tre...
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Design Journal #6 – Story Conflict & the Dramatic Arc

     Since this game and its in-progress somethingquel Deltarune have returned to their rent-free living space in my head this year, I'm going to write about Undertale for this one.        Undertale is an interesting game to talk about with respect to narrative structure and dramatic arc, because there are sort of layers to it. There's what's going on with the player character and other characters in the Underground, of course, but, unlike many story-focused games, you , the real-life human being playing the game, are also a character in the story. That said, I think the game actually incorporates multiple types of conflict depending on which path through the story is being assessed.      For the player character, I think the game at least starts out on the foot of what I think slots best into a sort of "Man vs. Society" framework; the protagonist has fallen into the Underground, a cavern beneath a mountain sealed off from the outside...
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Design Journal #5 – Character Redesign: Rewriting the Hero (Action-Adventure)

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     This one is a little tough for me. First of all, I'm not totally sure what the bounds of "action-adventure" are as a genre, and secondly, I'm really hard-pressed to come up with an action-adventure game I've play where I think the main protagonist is actually one of the issues, so I think the best I'll be able to do is an "I think this would be cool" as opposed to any sort of "fix" of any real issue.      That said, I think it would be cool if The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker did more with the enemy weapon drop mechanic, and I think this would also have implications for its Link's design and character.      As he is, Wind Waker 's Link is a pretty ordinary kid from an island village. He's actually the first Link in the series not to be a prophesied hero, actually; he is truly Just Some Guy who earns his place in history as a hero of legend through his own courage and gumption. To reflect his humble origins, his outfit ...
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Design Journal #4 – Conflict at the Table (Board/Card Games)

       Very basic choice for a topic game, I realize, but I think chess is a good case study here. It's a competitive, turn-based strategy game for two players. Each player begins the game with identical resources, the only difference being that the player with the white pieces makes the first move, and turns alternate back and forth from there. Players move one piece per turn in compliance with the movement restrictions of its type, and can capture (permanently remove) their opponent's pieces by moving one of their own onto the same tile. When one player's King piece is captured, the game ends in that player's defeat and the other's victory. The goal, therefore, is to capture your opponent's King while protecting your own.      Right away, the conflict (player vs. player) is pretty apparent. You and your opponent have perfectly-symmetrical, mutually-exclusive goals that require direct interaction with one another to achieve, as well as limitations, ru...
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Design Journal 3 – RPG vs. Puzzle: Structure Showdown

       RPG and puzzle games are a bit of an interesting pair of genres to talk about here, and I'll confess that I have more experience with the former than the latter by a significant margin. However, I still think I'll have some good stuff to talk about here.      The puzzle game, or rather puzzle game trilogy, I have the most recent experience and prominent experience with is the BoxBoy! trilogy on Nintendo 3DS, a series of sidescrolling puzzle-platformers wherein the player character, the eponymous BoxBoy, must cross gaps, press switches, and block lasers to reach the end of each stage by creating connected chains consisting of only a limited number of boxes (the precise quantity of which varies from stage to stage). I can't recall precisely how sequels expand the ability set, though they do, but that's the gist of it.      In the BoxBoy! games, you generally have just that one ability set for the whole game, and the sense of progr...
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Design Journal #2 – Feature Hack: Racing Games

      For this second design journal post, I can think of no game I'd rather talk about than the original Kirby Air Ride for the Nintendo GameCube, a classic staple of my childhood that still holds up now, even just revisiting it single-player.      Masahiro Sakurai of Super Smash Bros. fame was credited as "General Director" for the development of Kirby Air Ride , and while I don't really know what that specific title entails or how it differs from a "normal" director, Kirby Air Ride definitely exhibits a lot of Sakurai's signature design sensibilities. It is a racing game, but it's not just a racing game. It's split across three game modes, all supporting one to four players: The eponymous Air Ride , the game's most standard racing mode, featuring nine courses and a total of 14 vehicles, plus two separate characters who function more or less as a fifteenth and sixteenth vehicle option. The only vehicle available at the start is the War...
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Design Journal #1 – Why I Love Games

     There are a lot of games I could talk about for this assignment, and really no one option that, by itself, fully encapsulates everything I love about games and every type of game I love. In lieu of any "perfect" choice, I'll just talk about a particular game that's been near and dear to my heart for over ten years at this point.      EarthBound Beginnings , known in Japan as MOTHER , and by fans prior to its official 2015 release outside of Japan as EarthBound Zero .     Originally released in 1989 in Japan for the Famicom, and slated for a North American release a couple years later until the projected ROI on those plans was deemed unfavorable and it was canceled despite the localized game software itself being fully complete, EarthBound Beginnings , as it would come to be known when it made it to the Wii U Virtual Console outside of Japan in 2015, is a turn-based RPG and the first installment of Shigesato Itoi's legendary MOTHER trilogy,...
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