Yearly Archives: 2009


So: yesterday I skipped out on the Internet. That’s right. Instead of being a responsible online citizen, I decided that I’d spend all that time designing a DnD campaign with a friend instead. And hey, once you get started on one of those buggers, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll […]

Dungeons, Dragons and Design


It seems like this is the week of competitions. SpeedRunGames.com — creators of Grappling Hook, the game that’s been doing the rounds these past 2 or 3 weeks — have launched their own competition to promote their swinging, hooking puzzler.This one starts with the game demo, where you must find […]

Win a free copy of Grappling Hook




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Oh wow, this bugger is cute. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to be wowed by the simplistic goodness of Runman: Race Around the World. I meant to pick it up last week when, like, the entire Internet was gawking at it, but then rAge happened and, well … yeah, I’m late. […]

Runman: Race Around the World


Righto, so before we actually do the big rAge report proper (where we’ll go into all sorts of delightful detail about the weird stuff we got up to during the expo), I’m taking the liberty of mentioning one or two snippets here and there, mostly because I find them amusing. […]

rAge report: the morning after


Because pretty much the whole Dev.Mag crew was over at rAge for the entire weekend, things were a bit quiet over in the virtual office so we returned to a veritable deluge of fan mail (obviously) and people telling us how awesome we are. Amidst all that, the fine folks […]

World Train Royale launches with a competition



So, we’re at the halfway point of the 2009 rAge expo. Not exactly the halfway point, mind you, but it’s difficult to divide 3 days into two equal pieces unless you’re willing to abandon the world of integers and descend into the murky realms of *shudder* real numbers. The bunch […]

rAge report numero uno



“Explore the galaxy … in 20 minutes or less!” If you’ve not yet played Strange Adventures in Infinite Space (or at least its sequel, Weird Worlds), then shame on you. You’re a terrible human being and you deserve to be confined to the Little Corner of Humiliation for the rest […]

Strange Adventures in Infinite Space: now free!



This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 26, released in October 2006. Compared to most other game development competitions, Game.Dev’s fondly-named “Comps” have always stood out on one particular front: each new incarnation has always set out to challenge, direct and develop entrants within the field of game development. Instead […]

The Game.Dev Comps – Part 1


Everybody knows of Tim Schafer for his contributions to stuff like Grim Fandango and Full Throttle. And he’s big in the news nowadays because everyone’s gotten their metal horns and amplifiers all tuned up in anticipation for Brutal Legend. I count myself among those mindless hordes, of course. Who can […]

Schafer shares sorrows


I spent some time yesterday playing around with Higher!, a charming Flash game which has you trying to lift a house with balloons. “Definitely worth a mention in Dev.Mag,” I thought. “I’m totally going to be the first person on the Internet to talk about this. Everybody will love me […]

Higher!



I feel like I’m begging to get my ass kicked by Valve for showing off all of these distinctly unofficial fan games, but if they can take a Guard Dog “fan update” in stride, then maybe — just maybe — the humble Comp 23 entrants won’t get torn apart by […]

Comp 23: L4D card game


For me, game AI is interesting not in the way that one must make it smart (though this is, undoubtedly, a godlike feat at times), but in the way that one must make it convincing. I like to call this “stupidity coding”. With that in mind, I found this column […]

The computer cheats!