Old vs. New School in Game Design


Role-playing survival game is willing to take risks

This week Ken and I were joined by a new guest, fan of the site James Ellerby as we talked about news this week, games we’ve played and we let James pick our final topic.

Game-Wisdom

We started off talking about the recent controversy regarding the Yogscast kickstarter along with more news from Ken about the Oculus Rift. This also gave me the chance to ask James about his thoughts on crowd funding and the Rift. While talking about the Rift, we also stumbled across what could be the greatest idea in Game Industry history. Something so secretive that I’ll let you listen in to uncover.

James’ interest about Wildstar  started a conversation on MMO design and how things have changed over the years. Including talking about Guild Wars 2, WoW and other examples of the market.

Talking about games we’ve played, I brought up Abyss Odyssey, James talked about getting back into DC Universe Online and Ken talked about the horrid time he’s been having with the new Magic the Gathering game that just came out.

The topic James picked was about accessibility in game design and if games these days are becoming too simplified in the name of appealing to the masses. We had an interesting talk examining the line between streamlined and simple along with talking about games like the Souls series and Dwarf Fortress.