Lars Doucet

Norwegian+Texan Eastern Orthodox Christian game designer with Tourette's Syndrome and Narcolepsy.

ai

Maximizing the chances of an Anti-AI Human Revolution

In what kind of world would humans be the most likely to rise up against AI and smash it to bits with hammers?

Defender's Quest 2's Free Demo is Live now on Steam!

GO PLAY THE DEMO RIGHT NOW! The moment we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. Defender's Quest 2 is playable, right now, today, for a limited time as a free demo on Steam, as part of the week-long Steam Next Fest. Much like Defender's Quest 1's famous demo, this

Re-announcing Defender's Quest 2 (Art & Trailer Reveal!)

Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin is officially re-announced! You can wishlist it on Steam right now! Rise above the Mirk & protect your ship from dangers unknown in this epic tower defense game. We're happy to announce that we're publishing the long-awaited Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin by Level

dq2

DQ2 Progress Report for January 2023

I've started getting a lot of new art in from our artists, which I have been furiously integrating into the build.

ai Featured

AI: Markets for Lemons, and the Great Logging Off

What happens when most "people" you interact with on the internet are fake?

dq2 Featured

Year end retrospective-- DQ2 Progress Report for November 2022

Now that we're into December, I think it's useful to take a step back and look at where things stand with the game, and review everything we've accomplished in the last year.

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Content Push -- DQ2 Progress Report for October 2022

October marks the beginning of a concerted content push for the game.

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Rebalancing -- DQ2 Progress Report for September 2022

Rebalancing levels in response to testing & fancy scripts to auto-balance the economy.

dq2 Featured

Bug Hunt -- DQ2 Progress Report for August 2022

A month's worth of bugfixing, bigger portraits, and path tracers that won't give you a heart attack.

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Buff Snakes -- DQ2 Progress Report for July 2022

New features include wave mutations and connected snake-like enemies. We're also nearing the end of our big level design push.

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Fireworks -- DQ2 Progress Report for June 2022

New levels, new cannons, new abilities, new bosses, multiple things that catch on fire, and more!

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Tracing Lines -- DQ2 Progress Report for May 2022

We're proud to say that a full 25 levels are now "near final balance." It doesn't mean they won't change at all before the game releases, but it means that they're pretty dialed in and we feel the game is in a good place.

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Finishing the Map -- DQ2 Progress Report for April 2022

We've roughed out all 50+ battle locations on the map with basic level designs and are now moving on to polishing up the first half.

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Building a Better Wave -- DQ2 Progress Report for March 2022

Designing levels was taking too long, so we designed some tools to speed up the process and we've had great results.

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Summoning Reinforcements -- DQ2 Progress Report for February 2022

I've been trying to do too much stuff myself. So I'm getting some help! Specifically, we have recruited two new staff members, a production specialist, and a level designer/coder, to help me out.

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Sick Month -- DQ2 Progress Report for January 2022

My whole family got COVID; we're all gonna be fine but it slowed us down this month.

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Distilling Skills -- DQ2 Progress Report for December 2021

Instead of stringing out skill point bonuses, it's way more fun if we concentrate the benefits.

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Stoking Rivalry -- DQ2 Progress Report for November 2021

By merging both parties together, the White Hat leader was at risk of being overshadowed. Let's lean into that for both story and gameplay purposes.

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Taking Hostages -- DQ2 Progress Report for October 2021

We mix things up in four new levels during which the White Hats and Black Hats briefly trade party members

Powering through -- DQ2 Progress Report for September 2021

Everyone's been sick for over a month but somehow I managed to get some work done anyway

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Overcoming "Level Designer's" Block -- DQ2 Progress Report for August 2021

Our north star is making sure that each character's identity is established as solidly and clearly as possible before moving on. The player should instantly be able to grasp, "this is what this character is for."

business

Degraded Blockchains

The minute you connect your blockchain to an app frontend you now have a degraded blockchain, one that cannot even in principle guarantee immutability, trustlessness, and decentralization – at least not for assets that the app's customers actually care about.

Flow and Feedback -- DQ2 Progress Report for July 2021

This month's progress report is all about feedback, in both senses of the word: 1. Communications we've gotten from our community and playtesters, and 2. the way the game itself communicates pertinent info back to the player.

defenders-quest

The Rule of Firsts in Game Testing -- DQ2 Progress Report for June 2021

The first thing you tell a player to do in your game will become the default way they expect to interact with everything, and this pattern repeats fractally through every one of your game's sub-systems

roblox Featured

So You Want to Compete with Roblox

My inbox is stuffed with pitches from start-ups wanting to compete with Roblox, that plucky Lego-ish multiplayer game-creation platform currently valued at 41 billion dollars. They shouldn't try, but here's how to maybe not fail if they insist anyways.