Author: jesse
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The Meaning of Life, the Board Game
What’s the meaning of Life, the board game? I was delighted to find that my friend David Argellies bought a copy of this Milton Bradley classic at a yard sale. (Also, it turns out the the game is called “Destins” in French, which only ups the charm.) Along with Monopoly and Hotels, this is one…
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Reviving Paradise: The Art and Philosophy Behind Terra Nil’s ‘Reverse City Builder’ Journey
One of the coolest conferences I saw at Game Camp was about the art process behind the “reverse city builder” game Terra Nil, given by the tech artist Jonathan H. from the South African studio FreeLives. In this game, you first bring life and nature to a desolate planet, and then remove all the mechanical…
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News Sites Are Betting on Games—But Are They Missing the Bigger Opportunity?
American news sites are betting big on video games. But are they just the same old ideas? The New York Times had an article early in the summer about how news websites are turning to video games to gain subscribers and entice them to come back regularly. They mention newspapers such as The Washington Post,…
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Dave the Diver’s Early Access Strategy: Lessons from Jaeho Hwang at Gamecamp
What’s Dave the Diver’s Early Access secret? Dave the Diver is one of break-out hits from 2023. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a surprising mix of mechanics – fishing/collecting during the day and running a restaurant at night, all with a pixel-art aesthetic. So I was very happy to check out Jaeho Hwang…
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Exploring Game Design Values: Insights from Nikhil Murthy at ADDON
This is one my favorite talks from ADDON! Nikhil Murthy examines implicit messages that frame game designs in a bunch of different genres, including farming and exploration games. It’s a fascinating subject, and I love thinking about what values a certain game design expresses, and how highlighting alternative values would change those designs. At some…
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Building a “Puzzle Factory” for CRISPR Crunch
CRISPR Crunch is a fast-paced puzzle game for mobile, in which the player fends off waves after wave of attacking viruses. To kill a virus, you match the sequence of colors on the virus DNA with those in the hexagonal grid in the center of the screen. The basic gameplay is pretty simple – the player…
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How CRISPR Crunch Transformed from Tower Defense to Pattern-Matching Puzzle
Originally posted on playcurious.games Our game CRISPR Crunch is a fast-paced puzzle game for mobile, in which the player fends off waves of attacking viruses by matching the sequence of colors on the virus DNA with those in the hexagonal grid in the center of their screen. But it didn’t start this way! At first, CRISPR Crunch…
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Remix your Old Board Games
Instead of always playing board games to same old way, why not try out new variants that could be a lot more fun? Or better yet, make up your own? Based on the 1991 book “New Rules for Classic Games”, Jesse Himmelstein from the CRI Game Lab presents 11 techniques to finding interesting variations on…