Fortress of Doors

Lars Doucet's personal blog -- Game design and stuff.

           
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defenders-quest

Defender's Quest 2 Progress Report for November 2020

This month we talk all about level design!

  • Lars Doucet
6 min read
dq2

Reflecting and recharging - October 2020

This past October I did something I haven't done in over 6 years – took a vacation with my family. After I got back I took some time to reorganize some things in my life, and a plan for DQ2's continued development.

  • Lars Doucet
1 min read
dq2

Collecting Details: Defender's Quest 2 Progress for September 2020

September's progress report includes changes to item design, status effect display, defender placement, and lots of other details.

  • Lars Doucet
4 min read
gamedatacrunch

GameDataCrunch: my facts-first game metrics website

I'm working on a new website called GameDataCrunch.com, a new way to understand the game industry by looking at metrics and slicing them up in a bunch of different ways.

  • Lars Doucet
9 min read
dq2

Defender's Quest 2 Progress for August 2020: Electric Four Square

Once again emphasizing visual communication: - Energy shields - Show buff zones more clearly - Ultimate is now a 2x2 sized unit

  • Lars Doucet
3 min read
defenders-quest

Fun vs. Balance: Defender's Quest 2 Progress for July 2020

In previous months we've talked about how we ensure that DQ2 is balanced.Today we're going to talk about how we ensure that DQ2 is fun.

  • Lars Doucet
6 min read
news

Independent once more: Defender's Quest 2 Progress for June 2020

Notes on ending my contract with Valve, and a progress update for June

  • Lars Doucet
4 min read
nintendo

The Evolution of Game Genres: NES, Gameboy, and SNES

Ever wonder where game genres came from? Let's look at how Nintendo's usage of them evolved over time.

  • Lars Doucet
11 min read
dq2

Back in the Saddle: Defender's Quest 2 / my life progress report for May 2020

Time for an extremely overdue update on everything going on with Defender's Quest 2 development and my life in general.

  • Lars Doucet
2 min read
dq2

Extra Quarantine: Defender's Quest 2 Progress for April 2020

Progress report for May 2020 -- quarantine is hard, but we still did some stuff.

  • Lars Doucet
1 min read
defenders-quest

Balancing Quarantine: Defender's Quest 2 Progress for March 2020

Quarantine sucks, but DQ2 is still making progress. Learn all about balancing careful intro stages for our hero units.

  • Lars Doucet
5 min read
dq2

Laser Lightning Bugs in the Spotlight: Defender's Quest 2 Progress for February 2020

This month, we're working on visual design language and gamefeel.

  • Lars Doucet
8 min read
dq2

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: January 2020

Defender's Quest 2's progress report for the month of January.

  • Lars Doucet
6 min read
defenders-quest

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: December 2019

December progress report for Defender's Quest 2

  • Lars Doucet
3 min read
defenders-quest

Collecting Power -- Defender's Quest 2 Progress: November 2019

It's mid-November, so here's the latest progress report for DQ2. Details on the "Collector" and "Eliminator" classes.

  • Lars Doucet
7 min read
dq2

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: October 2019

Mid-October's Defender's Quest 2 progress report.

  • Lars Doucet
2 min read

Defender's Quest 2 tester/backer build out today

Hey everyone! So after a few months of massively destabilizing the Defender's Quest 2 build, today I'm proud to say that we're ready to start regularly testing things and gathering feedback again. The

  • Lars Doucet
1 min read
dq2

Steamy Bees -- Defender's Quest 2 Progress: September 2019

Let's talk about angry intelligent bees in Defender's Quest 2 in this month's progress report!

  • Lars Doucet
7 min read
meta

Setting Boundaries, Open Source, & Gamedev on Consoles

I am setting some personal and professional boundaries.

  • Lars Doucet
13 min read
defenders-quest

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: August 2019

It's the ides of August, which means it's time for another infodump progress report for Defender's Quest 2. Skill trees and character classes and a bunch of other stuff.

  • Lars Doucet
10 min read
steam

Steam Diving Bell

Designing a tool for browsing Steam games "Wikipedia binge" style

  • Lars Doucet
19 min read
defenders-quest

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: February-July 2019

We're starting something new -- Defender's Quest 2 monthly infodump progress reports.

  • Lars Doucet
10 min read
design

Wash your game's windows

Ever played one of those games where you have no clue what any of the mechanics actually do and you just kind of muddle through? Playing this kind of game is like peering through a dirty, smudged window. What a game like this needs is some Windex.

  • Lars Doucet
13 min read
steam

So You Want To Compete With Steam: Epic, Discord, Kartridge, and RobotCache

Four new competitors have emerged to take on Steam: Epic, Discord, Kartridge, and RobotCache. Let's see how they stack up.

  • Lars Doucet
44 min read
steam

Operation Tell Valve All The Things, 3.0

I surveyed a bunch of Steam developers and they told me how they feel about recent developments.

  • Lars Doucet
27 min read
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