Prototypes
The Last Shadow
A stealth-action game of angles!
Chess the Gathering
Welcome to Chess the Gathering, the prototype where we ask “What if Chess and Magic: The Gathering, had a baby… in a dungeon.”
Sharing the Design Journey
Blog Posts
How Duskers Became a Thing
“Maybe it wasn’t chance that I made a game about survival and being alone in the dark. Duskers was about piloting drones into derelict spaceships in a universe that had become a giant graveyard. But it was also about gritty tech that broke down, isolation, and adapting to survive.”
The Difficulty I Want
“Many games ask you to choose a difficulty level up front, but don’t allow you to adjust it later on when you realize you were wrong. Giving players access to Level of Difficulty settings throughout the game can not only help prevent them from being frustrated and putting the controller down, but also allow them to change the way in which they perceive and play the game.”
Interweaving Gameplay Mechanics
“When I first envisioned the circuit game I started with the simple notion of energizing a circuit by turning its parts, or “tiles” to allow energy to flow (paradox 3000 is the most recent example I can think of). I then thought that perhaps once the circuit was energized…”
Game Dev Talks
Curated Narratives in
ProcGen Games
Tim Keenan talks about melding curated narrative into the roguelike structure at Roguelike Celebration 2017.
Finding Duskers
In this 2017 GDC talk, Duskers creator Tim Keenan explains how his development process focused on building emotional states rather than features, refining the game’s vision through experimentation, and building a clear player fantasy.
Paper Prototypes
Is your brain infected with questions about game development? Design3 got the prognosis from Tim Keenan of Misfits Attic at GDC 2013 where he discussed the benefits of “paper prototyping”.