Strange Journeys
Tyler Sigman: Game Designer, Writer, Engineer
Category
Game Design
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04.23.09Leg Fisher Man v1.2 - Play the Flash Game!The world has spoken--they want more LEG FISHER MAN. So more they get! New in version 1.2: Music and sound FX! Woot! Multicatch Bonuses--catch multiple snakes at once to get super duper bonuses! Perfection Bonuses--don't let any snakes escape during the wave to get a PERFECT bonus. New rankings--can you become a MEGLADON?!111!!! Leaderboard--where do you rank on the LEG FISHER WALL OF FAME? PLAY NOW!
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03.16.09WTF is Leg Fisher Man?The LegFisherMan game is a tribute to a a brave, never-say-die real-life counterpart. To watch a master at work, see this video: Real Life Leg Fisher Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsiSoNWCy-M Now he is immortalized in 8-bit. PLAY THE GAME
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08.07.08Torqueing my Brain (ouch)The last couple months have been pretty active with some relocation changes. We're in the process of moving and also doing both ends of the real estate transactions (buying one, selling one). So that has been occupying a lot of brain cycles. All the menial tasks involved with getting one house ready to sell and moving into another one have been a welcome distraction, though. I was starting to feel pretty tapped out creatively, but I think all the physical labor and other things have been slowly refilling the brain. So to get a distraction from the moving stuff (oh, the irony) I've ...
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06.06.08The Pied Pipers of Hamelin - Free Game DownloadI've been quite busy lately and haven't been blogging enough. As reward for your perseverance, here's a free card game for you to download. All you need to do is download, print, cut, and gather up 2 six-sided dice. If you play it, please let me know any feedback you have! DOWNLOAD THE GAME HERE! (1.2 MB)
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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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04.21.08Starcraft vs Company of Heroes, WoW vs Every Other MMORPGHere's an interesting post about the design aspects that make some modern RTS games like Company of Heroes and Dawn of War less suitable for high level play than Starcraft. The OpEd theorizes that being less suitable for continued high-level play is one of the reasons why these games, despite their strong critical reception, are nowhere nearly as big a phenomenon as the afore-mentioned Blizzard Machine. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18326 I think the points are excellent and I've seen them in other guises (e.g. board games). Namely, degrees of randomness can work for and against you. Also, simple presentation = gameplay clarity. I still think ...
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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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03.25.08Longship: Viking Raiders - Gameboard and Longship CardSince I'm getting things ready for Gamestorm, I thought I'd share the latest prototype board image. You can grab a low-res PDF here: I'm a great looking game map, download me! The core art is still Jeff Simpson's. Jessica helped me mock in the reference info, Time Track, Passing Time boxes, and so on. Combined with the latest Viking Ship concept, I've managed to eliminate separate player references entirely! That's a great plus, to me. Everything you need is either on your ship sheet or on the gameboard. Yarrr, I'm a Longship! Look at me! Keep in mind, these are still prototype / work-in-progress. ...
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03.25.08Vikings Invade Portland (Gamestorm 10 Playtesting)I'm headed off to Gamestorm 10 this weekend, which is held in Vancouver WA (just before the bridge to Portland). On the agenda are playtesting sessions for two of my games: "Longship: Viking Raiders" and "A Murder of Crows". I'll be doing them as part of the Protospiel West events, I hope. Both games are showing some promise and I'm looking forward to this next round of playing. Both of them are fairly mature; that is, I'm no longer playtesting to see if they are completely broken/totally un-fun/lameroony/etc. Instead, I'm checking balance, changes, and just trying to get a sense of to ...
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02.05.08Game Design is a Team MetaGameMoogle.net just posted a nice little piece about the differences between "ideal" game development (aka do whatever you want without constraints) and real world game development. While it's not the most glamorous or enjoyable part of game design, the constraints of working on a team are extremely relevant to day-to-day designer experience. While I have your attention, also check THIS OUT if you haven't already seen it. Can anything really top a monkey riding a border collie? I mean, really? (Ok, owning two border collies does make me a bit biased to collie-based entertainment.)
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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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12.22.07Holiday Gift - Free Boardgame DownloadHappy Holidays from StrangeJourneys.com! Best wishes for a great 2008.
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12.18.07Longship: Custom Dice (pic)Here is a mockup of the custom dice faces--makes the Longship dice article make a little more sense, perhaps!
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11.29.07The Player PieA few years ago, I wrote an article for Gamasutra.com ("The Theory of Game Relativity") about classifying potential players of a game and then using that to help assess how much your game will appeal to them. It's more or less a mental exercise, but can help remind you to include some features that will reach a wider audience, or at least your intended audience. The original article featured a few HIDEOUS illustrations that I made, thinking at the time that the vast Art Department at Gamasutra would certainly pretty them up. Imagine my horror when the illos appeared in the article. ...
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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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11.24.07BGG.con #3 Playtesting Photos: Longship and Le TourHere's a link to some playtesting photos of LONGSHIP and LE TOUR. Special thanks to JEFF SIMPSON for making me the awesome board--really captured the vibrancy and mood I was hoping for. Without it I would've had trouble ensnaring playtesters with so many gorgeous games only feet away. http://www.flickr.com/gp/21219684@N04/Gf5669 Here's one of the images to whet your appetite!
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11.21.07Longships plunder BGG.con #3I just returned from BGG.con #3 (Board Game Geek convention in Dallas). (www.boardgamegeek.com) Like last year, I had a great time and met a lot of nice people, saw a lot of cool games, and lost a lot of sleep. I didn't play nearly as many games this year, but that's because I brought a bevy of prototypes with me. Ok, three prototypes, which probably doesn't count as a bevy. I brought "Longship: Viking Raiders", "Le Tour", and "The Pied Pipers of Haemlin." Many thanks to the playtesters who made this convention a success! Your feedback was quite helpful, and I came ...
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11.11.07The Briliant Design of Team Fortress 2I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 by Valve (Part of the "Orange Box", of course). By "a lot", I mean enough to make me tired, skip other games, and generally interfere a bit with my daily schedule. My "a lot" these days doesn't even rank in the annals of hardcore players out there; I have a pretty busy life and if I play 2 hours of a game on any given day it's somewhat unusual. After I bought the Orange Box, a solid 2 weeks passed before I could break away from TF2 long enough to even BOOT ...
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11.06.07BGG.CON #3 on the HorizonNext week is BGG.CON #3. Hard to believe it's been a year since the last one. I've been to many conventions, and I'm hard pressed to think of one where I've had *more fun* than last year's BGG.CON. It was the perfect size, filled with the most amazing game library, and the attendees were by-and-large more than pleasant. The convention is held in Dallas, and is put on by Aldie and Derk of the amazing www.boardgamegeek.com. If you're going to be there, give me a ping at tsigman atttttttttt yahoo dot you know what. I hope to be bringing two or three of ...
