The Game Design Litmus Testby BTB in Articles | 2019-11-19 I've written at length at this point on multiple aspects of game design, covering a wide range of "do's" and "don'ts" of a vastly complex subject. Today, as indicated by the title of the article, I'd like to take a step back and propose a basic rule of thumb which can give you a basic idea about how well a game is designed without analyzing it ... [Read more]
RPG Boss Design 101by BTB in Articles | 2019-08-08 With the 2.0 release of Brave New World just around the corner and one of its most prominent changes being a complete overhaul of enemy AI, I wanted to take a moment to talk specifically about how to design a good boss fight in an RPG. Now, anyone who's played Brave New World at all in the six years since its initial release can generally agree ... [Read more]
The Developer's Handby BTB in Articles | 2019-03-10 At some point in every game developer's career, they are legally required to write an essay explaining why Super Metroid is the gold standard of game design, because when a game is so groundbreaking that it names an entire genre, it deserves to be examined. While my previous article took a look at Final Fantasy VI and pointed out a long list of game design "don'ts", ... [Read more]
On Games & Bad Designby BTB in Articles | 2018-07-29 In light of the upcoming version 1.10 of Brave New World, I figured now would be a better time than ever to finally write that follow-up article to the one I wrote about the nature of modding. This time, I'll be talking about game design as a whole, using inherent flaws in Final Fantasy VI that are addressed in Brave New World as key talking points. ... [Read more]
On the Nature of Modding & Game Designby BTB in Articles | 2018-02-22 Hello, my name is BTB, co-creator and designer of Final Fantasy VI: Brave New World. And like anyone with a job or hobby that attracts an audience, there are certain questions that tend to come up a lot to me in my capacity as a modder of video games... certain "frequently-asked questions", if you will. Today, I would like to take a moment to answer some ... [Read more]
Got A Question About Modding? This Is For You!by Kyrios in Articles | 2017-05-15 Let's talk about modding. No, I don't mean stuff like Skyrim or New Vegas mods, I mean the kind of stuff we host here on NGPlus: modified versions of your favorite old school games. Modding isn't simple, but it's not impossible either, as the downloads section shows. I've been seeing a lot of threads pop up lately, each with their own misconceptions about how modding is ... [Read more]
What Makes A Good Mod?by Kyrios in Articles | 2017-05-15 We've talked about what modding a game involves, but another huge misconception I find is what constitutes a good mod. For the sake of this article, we're going to be restricting this largely to difficulty mods, for obvious reasons. To create a good difficulty mod, you have to look at the following: Difficulty Curve Difficulty Type Content Tedium Technical Limitations Each of these must be managed and/or worked around appropriately in order to ... [Read more]
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma (Vita) Reviewby Kyrios in Articles | 2017-05-15 BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma is the third installment in the BlazBlue series, following Calamity Trigger and Contimuum Shift. BlazBlue is the spiritual successor to the Guilty Gear franchise, and, as such, is also developed by Aksys Games (also known as Arc System Works in Japan). As a fighting game, Phantasma is in a class all its own. I don't mean it's the best fighting game out there, but I ... [Read more]
Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (Vita) Reviewby Kyrios in Articles | 2017-05-15 Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (henceforth referred to as "Battle Royale" for obvious reasons), a game made by SuperBot Entertainment in conjunction with SCE Santa Monica Studio, is constantly being compared to Nintendo's hit franchise Super Smash Bros, and for good reason -- it's inspired by it. Most of the reviews out there that I've read for this game either compare it to Smash or complain that it ... [Read more]
FUSE Reviewby Kyrios in Articles | 2017-05-15 FUSE is a tactical third person shooter developed by Insomniac Games for both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. It's rather new; it just came out last month. I'd heard a lot about it from my friends, and the demo wasn't too bad, so I figured why not? FUSE isn't amazing, but it's not piss poor either. Let's take a deeper look at the title. Gameplay Mechanics Movement, ... [Read more]
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