Weekly Links #208

2018-02-25

Hello, everyone. This is a week with few links, and not much of a progress update either. I simply don't have any new visuals to show you, and progress since last time consisted mostly in adding and balancing the remaining content, now that it's actually smooth sailing. Being tired, however, I spent most of the time writing an article about the tools we're missing, and hanging out in a worldbuilding community called World Anvil. Which in turn prompted me to think more about the implicit setting in The Fairy's Throne (there's more to it than meets the eye), and my old principles for creating one, which I just updated again, and spread more widely.

So, not much that's directly related to game development, but still things to keep in mind.

In the way of news, at the end of last week, PCGamer published a large, two-part history of Ion Storm, and I won't rehash the fratboy horror story here because the writer did a good job of that (no matter how much they tried to sugar-coat it). I want to stress just one lesson: design is by definition about making a product aesthetically pleasing while not sacrificing functionality! Even graphic design is useless if your beautiful artwork is incomprehensible, and the text impossible to read. But a game is first a machine that has to run. That's why at Id Software game designers had to wait for a working game engine first: so they'd know what could be in the game -- as the then-kiddies at Ion Storm soon learned at the school of hard knocks. Don't be like them, mmm-kay? Dream big if you like, but be aware that it's only a dream until you have something in hand.

Also note that Deux Ex, the studio's big success that everyone cites as an exception from the rule, was emphatically not developed in the infamous penthouse where everyone else piled up. And it still almost failed.

Oh well. See you next week.