I’ve written before about the Two Factor Theory of Emotion and how it relates to game design. Last year (almost two years ago–crap, I’m asleep at the wheel here) I wrote that the Theory seems directly related to good horror games because it suggests that developers can trick you into feeling stressed about the images […]
How many Japanese game designers can you name off the top of your head? There’s Shigeru Miyamoto, sure. Readers of this site probably know about Suda51, SWERY, and Akira Yamaoka. Hideo Kojima. Yu “Shenmue” Suzuki and Tomonobu “Dead or Alive” Itagaki. Shinji Mikami. Fumito “Ico” Ueda. If you’ve been around a bit you probably know […]
As you might have been able to tell from my last post, I recently finished Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and it was fantastic. It was fantastic even though it features some of the must frustrating sequences ever in a Silent Hill game, namely the Otherworld chases. But the rest of the game works so well […]
My daughter turns three this week, so we celebrated by visiting Tokyo Disneyland (which, like Tokyo Game Show and the Tokyo International Airport, is not actually in Tokyo). The place was packed with families and couples (the latter of which take total control of the park after nightfall), but otherwise strongly resembled my blurry memories […]
I had a very long, but very awesome day yesterday. I had some business in Osaka so I left my house in Yokohama early, hopped on a bullet train, and was in Osaka by 10:30 AM. I lived in the Kansai area (Osaka and Kyoto–I was in Kyoto) more than ten years ago as a […]
I’m most of the way through Alan Wake now (at least, I think I am–it’s not supposed to be very long) and so far I’m enjoying it. It’s very different than the Japanese horror games that make up the bulk of this site, and it’s a very nice change of pace. I’ll write more about […]
I’m writing this post from a hotel room in central London. I’m visiting the UK in order to attend the Develop Conference, a Europe-centric conference for game developers. Yesterday I took the train south to Brighton for the first day of the conference, a special day focused on mobile developers, and gave a talk to […]
You might recall that about a year ago, I had the pleasure of attending and participating in the Thinking After Dark conference (my notes: one, two, and three). Now, several of the papers presented at that conference (including, I’m honored to report, my own) are available in the latest issue. Half of the issue is […]
I’m several hours into Heavy Rain now, and I’m throughly enjoying it. There are some flaws here and there but generally the whole thing is amazingly well done, and unlike 99% of other games on the market today. I’ll post a lot more about it when I finish. Playing Heavy Rain got me thinking about […]
The recently released Wii horror game, Ju-on: The Grudge, is not a fantastic game. It’s plagued by a game design that values one-hit kills and requires levels to be replayed over and over, and yet it’s so simple that no amount of replaying can really make you a better player. The level designs themselves are […]