January 2011
8 posts
2 tags
Teaching the player how to play
When you introduce a new element to a game, you should instruct the player how to use it. You should design this instruction so that the player learns organically, without being aware of the teaching.
Here’s an example of how not to do this. In Dead Space, you kill enemies most effectively by slicing off their arms and legs with your ‘plasma cutter’, a gun-like cutting tool. The designers...
2 tags
Malaria
Malaria is a terrible disease. Mosquitoes spread it, carrying infection from person to person as they feed, infecting hundreds of millions of people around the world each year. Each year it kills a million people, mostly children. And once you’re infected, it can lie dormant in your liver for years, almost impossible to eradicate.
In Far Cry 2, the player character has malaria. Every now and...
Does Google’s removal of H.264 support presage the removal of H.264 <video> streams through YouTube in favour of only two options: WebM <video> or whatever-codec through Flash? YouTube has tremendous pulling power, and might just have the weight needed to convince hardware manufacturers to adopt WebM.
What happens when Google’s and Apple’s current arrangement regarding YouTube...
1 tag
User Interface Design in Twitter for Mac, part II
This is the second part of my detailed look at the user interface of Twitter for Mac. Part one is here.
The timeline
The sidebar is a constant presence while navigating the app; except for composing tweets, all other everyday interactions are done through the pane on the right-hand side. Most of the time this will show the user’s timeline.
...
1 tag
User Interface Design in Twitter for Mac, part I
With the launch of the Mac App Store last week, the long-awaited Tweetie 2, a.k.a. Twitter for the Mac was relased. As with his previous apps, Loren Brichter has employed many custom user interface elements. In the past, his willingness to experiment with UI has led to several usable and intuitive innovations. While the Twitter app shows evidence...
Twitter for Mac hidden preferences
Allow Escape to close the “New Tweet” window:
defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac ESCClosesComposeWindow -bool YES
Hide Twitter for Mac when in background:
defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac HideInBackground -bool YES
Compose windows don’t float over all windoes:
defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac NormalComposeWindowLevel -bool NO
Scrolling brings Twitter for Mac to...
Posit: Publishers produce games.
Consequence: Retailers sell those games.
Result: Customers buy the games. Publishers and retailers profit.
Some people pirate those games for free.
Customers, dissatisfied or finished with the games, trade them back in to retailers.
Retailers resell the trade-ins for a slight markdown and generous profit.
Customers use the savings from trade-ins to buy...
The Player, the Villain
(This post contains spoilers for Far Cry 2 and Bioshock)
Bioshock famously built the cornerstone of its plot on the deconstruction of the designer/player relationship. It recognised that in a linear narrative, the player unwittingly (but willingly) acts as the agent of the designer in order to progress. Every significant action that the player takes is one that the designer planned out for them,...