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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
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
dq

MAKING A VIDEOGAME COVER THAT DOESN'T SUCK

We just made a new cover for our game's upcoming console release, and that got us thinking about making covers in general. Ooooooh so shiny! There are many ways to design a videogame

  • James Cavin
    James Cavin
12 min read
games

Oil It or Spoil It

"Juice" is probably a game design term you've heard before. By Agricultural Research Service Public Domain It was first coined in the seminal article How to Prototype a Game in Under

  • Lars Doucet
11 min read
defender's quest

Optimizing Tower Defense for FOCUS and THINKING - Defender's Quest

The design philosophy for Defender's Quest boils down to two guiding principles that play to the Tower Defense (TD) genre's strengths: Let the player FOCUS Test the player's THINKING Note the verbs. We

  • Lars Doucet
14 min read
defender's quest

The Quest to Upscale Pixel Art

Hey everyone! So, we are currently looking very seriously at a console release for Defender's Quest II. Of course, PC is our top priority, and don't take this as an official statement of

  • Lars Doucet
4 min read
design

On Procedural Death Labyrinths

A few weeks ago Tanya X. Short said, "Never Say Roguelike."I usually shy away from vocabulary fights and let smarter people than me hash it out, so I was pleasantly

  • Lars Doucet
5 min read
design

Tourette Quest - Media, Magic, and Nostrils!

The reaction to my super-dinky "Tourette's Quest" prototype has completely floored me.  For those of you just joining us, a few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about a new

  • Lars Doucet
10 min read
design

Tourette's Quest

Ever since we launched Defender's Quest on Steam, GOG, and other fine stores two weeks ago, I've been doing nothing but support and patches. My brain is about to melt and if I

  • Lars Doucet
8 min read
business

Freeloadable content - an alternative to paid DLC

Cross-posted on gamasutra.comA lot of developers/publishers sell expansion packs and other discrete add-ons to their games as "downloadable content," or "paid DLC."  This model has problems, for both players and

  • Lars Doucet
9 min read
steam

The Holy Grail of Digital Distribution

Cross-posted on Gamasutra. Twitter handle: @larsiusprimeThe challenge of being an independent developer is that so much of your game's success is out of your control. There's no Department of Internet Money where

  • Lars Doucet
10 min read
business

Pay What You Want and the Four Currencies

Cross-posted on gamasutraToday I'd like to apply my "four currencies" model to the "pay what you want" phenomenon.  Like piracy, this is a case where the results we observe don't match what

  • Lars Doucet
6 min read
business

Piracy and the four currencies, part 2

Cross-posted on gamasutra.My previous article, piracy and the four currencies seems to have caused a bit of a stir, so I'm going to make this a series. Welcome to part two!For

  • Lars Doucet
12 min read
defender's quest

Defender's Quest Deployment Strategy

We just launched our new game, Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten, for PC/Mac/Linux, a few days ago, and have been pretty surprised at our initial success.  Only time will tell

  • Lars Doucet
7 min read
defender's quest

A Status Effect Stacking Algorithm

(Cross-posted on my Gamasutra blog, which usually gets more comments)Status effects are a cool way to add strategic depth to both Tower Defense games and RPG's, and since  our upcoming title

  • Lars Doucet
9 min read
design

Designing an Anti-Incest Algorithm

(Cross-posted on gamasutra.com)Once upon a time I was designing a game called Trondheim.  In Trondheim, you would guide a small group of nomadic fairy-folk, the "Tronds," through a great

  • Lars Doucet
9 min read
defender's quest

RPG's, challenge, and grinding.

Cross-posted on gamasutra.As part of an ongoing series on our upcoming tactical RPG Defender's Quest, I'd like to talk about RPG's, challenge, and "grinding." Let's start with accessibility.AccessibilityAccessibility

  • Lars Doucet
12 min read
defender's quest

RPG's and Suckage

(Cross-posted on gamasutra.com)As part of our ongoing series on our new game Defender's Quest, I'd like to talk about suckage.When you say "This SUCKS!" you're usually not saying "I hate

  • Lars Doucet
8 min read
defender's quest

Upgrades, Equipment, and Skill Trees

Cross-posted on gamasutra.As part of my continuing series on the design of our new tactical tower defense / RPG hybrid Defender's Quest, I'm going to talk a little bit about upgrade systems, equipment,

  • Lars Doucet
15 min read
design

Don't mess with RPG's

Cross-posted on gamasutra.comSo, based on the great responses from the last article over at gamasutra, people care a lot about RPGs. I've always known this, but the response really drove it home

  • Lars Doucet
6 min read
defender's quest

Rebooting the RPG

Cross-posted on gamasutra.comIn the BeginningMany indie game developers start with RPG’s, and thirteen years ago, I was no exception.  With hundreds of hours of classic RPG playing experience and RPG

  • Lars Doucet
8 min read
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