Fortress of Doors

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.

gamedatacrunch Featured

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

defenders-quest Featured

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.

dq2 Featured

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.

dq2

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: January 2020

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

defenders-quest

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: December 2019

December progress report for Defender's Quest 2

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.

dq2

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: October 2019

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

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 plan from hereon out is to push out a build to

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!

meta

Setting Boundaries, Open Source, & Gamedev on Consoles

I am setting some personal and professional boundaries.

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.

steam

Steam Diving Bell

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

defenders-quest

Defender's Quest 2 Progress: February-July 2019

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

design Featured

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.

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.

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.

steam

How to scientifically survey all of Steam's developers

If you ever wanted to survey every Steam developer in existence, here's how you might do that.

defenders-quest

DQ2 alpha/beta access is now available.

Defender's Quest 2 now has alpha/beta/tester access available! Instructions inside.