Strange Journeys
Tyler Sigman: Game Designer, Writer, Engineer
Category
Day in the Life
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01.22.09Freed from the Shackles of Counterop Convection Appliances[caption id="attachment_90" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Strange Adventures of Sigma - Part 5"][/caption]
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01.16.09Patents and the Videogame Industry[caption id="attachment_87" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="SAoS - The Top 3 Videogame Patents that SHOULD Exist"][/caption]
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01.15.09The Golden Fleece[caption id="attachment_84" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Strange Adventures of Sigma - Strip 3"][/caption]
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01.13.09Strange Adventures of Sigma - Strip #2[caption id="attachment_81" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="The Strange Adventures of Sigma continue..."][/caption]
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01.12.09Dawn of a New Era[caption id="attachment_75" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Strange Adventures of Sigma - Strip #1"][/caption]
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05.24.08VIGS, Vidfest, NSI PlayWRITE and lots of BlabberingWow, end of quite a busy week. I was fortunate enough to be asked to sit on the "Low-Fi Game Prototyping" panel at VIGS (Vancouver International Game Summit) this past Thursday. I enjoyed the experience and the chance to have a dialogue with Design Directors/Senior Designers from Relic, EA, and Threewave. The talk was well attended although we finished nearly a 1/2 hour early so that worries me that we were actually pretty boring. Or perhaps we covered all the material very efficiently! (Hopefully the latter, of course). Game Prototyping is a subject close to my heart, and I see it ...
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04.15.08Current Game Projects UpdateLots of good stuff going on, so thought I'd give an update. If you would like to see more info about any of these, please <comment> and I'll prioritize to please! The Ultra-Secret Nintendo DS Aerial Racing Game Actually, it's not that secret, and I'm thinking about getting permission to blog more about it here because really any publicity right now is good publicity. We are thick in development at the moment, and also in the middle of negotiating with potential publishers. Exciting times! I've been working on this game under contract to Big Sandwich Games since last May or so, and have ...
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01.22.08Gamasutra Article: “Plundering the Seas of Probability”My latest Gamasutra feature just went live. It's basically an expanded version of the Longship Dice Design post from December, but all prettied up with some pics and such. Let me know what you think of it! Interesting? Dry? Hard to follow? Informative? The fine folks there have offered me a monthly slot if I want it. Could be a lot of fun. However, I'm trying to decide if (a) I have enough time, (b) I have enough material, and (c) the readership will appreciate what I have to offer. Hmmm.
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01.17.08Games, Games, GamesYear of the Rat nothing, this is the Year of the Games. Of course, just about every year is Year of the Games for me. But my head is really bursting with game-related projects and it's only a few weeks in! Secret DS game: the DS game I'm designing is now officially in pre-production. It's an exciting time--everyone is powering ahead, we're making good progress, and I'm sketching out the blueprint for cranking the thing out. It's an aggressive schedule, hoping to finish by June or so. But it should be doable, and I think it'll be a fun action game. I can't wait ...
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11.25.07Designing Longship: Custom Dice MechanicsBe warned: this post is pretty long and contains a lot of boring calculations. Go check up on BRITNEY SPEARS or PARIS HILTON or AMY WINEHOUSE if you have a short attention span. (Take that, Search Engines!) The most unique and enjoyable parts of the LONGSHIP game design are the weather system mechanics and the CargoMasterTM mechanics (according to playtester reviews, not just my random opining). So why isn't this post about those? Because, thats why. Joking aside, I will write about those mechanics at some point because they are far more interesting. But I just recently retooled Longship to use custom dice instead of straight d6s, so ...
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09.20.07Day in the Life: Thruster Design (Part 1)When I started this blog, I certainly meant to include some good "day in the life" entries that discuss some of the decisions and tasks I find myself doing as a game designer, writer, and erstwhile creator of "stuff". Here's a start. I'm going to get into the real nitty gritty, so forgive me if it's not all light reading. The DS game prototype I am working on has a racing mode to it. I can't share too much about the game, but I think I can definitely talk a few specifics without encroaching on IP too much. In the game, the ...
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08.09.07A 3D Modeling Program is a CAD Program by Any Other Name…This week, I've been boning up on 3DS Max a bit, so I can do a better job of making some test tracks environments for the game demo I'm helping out with. If there's one frustrating thing in life, it's knowing exactly what you need to do, just not how to do it. (Okay, there are other frustrating things in life, but this one ranks up there.) You see, when you combine my college experience, aerospace career, and game development career, I have done a SH&TLOAD of 2D/3D/CAD modeling in some form or another. But every time you have to learn ...
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07.30.07Day in the Life: Tuning Mechanics and Google Sketch-UpThe last few days have been some of the fun ones to be a game designer. The project I'm working on (hopefully I can speak more concretely about it soon) is fast approaching a demo date. We're hoping to take it on the road in September and show off the concept. There are lots of things that need done before then, and some of the most important are tuning the game mechanics and metrics. Without saying too much, the game has some racing genre elements to it. Any time you have an action-heavy game, it is really, really, really (dare I ...
