When I tell people I teach game design, they often immediately assume I do programming. And yes, I do some of that, but as anyone that teaches game design will tell you, it’s much more than that. Increasingly I think of my job as advocating for a compositional approach to […]
Wendi Sierra
36 posts
In some ways my experience last week could have been the closing scene from a cheesy Disney movie: a girl enters the room and a hush falls across the crowd. The sudden arrival seemed to have fundamentally changed the character of the environment. Except, of course, it wasn’t a ball […]
In Game of Thrones the character Varys poses a riddle. Three men each command a swordsman to kill the other two. One man is a king, one is a rich man, one is a priest. The question, then, is who among the three has the most power, and therefore the […]
I’ll never forget the moment, years ago, when I mentally “picked” a flower while walking into a Blockbuster Video. I glanced at their sidewalk planter, which had a number of beautiful pink and purple flowers in it, and I swear I saw a hand icon in my vision and heard […]
I’d ask you to do a quick google image search for the phrase “hardcore gamer”, but if you’re familiar with gaming at all you don’t need to. Heck, you probably wouldn’t need to even if you weren’t very familiar with gaming, because everyone knows what a hardcore gamer looks like- […]
Imagine two passionate music fans. They play their favorite albums and songs every chance they get; they read blogs, go to shows, buy merch, maybe even get some sweet tattoos. In short, the music they enjoy is so central to them that in many ways it becomes a part of […]
As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, horror is one of my favorite genres when it’s done right. Good horror games blend amazing atmosphere, intriguing narratives, and clever game mechanics to create experiences that evoke engagement and emotion. I’ve been burned by horror games recently, but Darkest Dungeon reminds me […]
As you may have surmised from reading some of my other posts, I’m a huge Borderlands fan. I love the game, I love the tone, I love the stories, and I love the unique world Gearbox has created. So, when Tales from the Borderlands was announced I bit my tongue […]
I had an extended conversation recently with a student interesting in pursuing game design beyond our undergraduate program at my college. We spoke about the types of things you would expect for any student considering grad school- what types of things to look for in a program, how to begin […]
Just about every gamer has it: that one series that they love through thick and thin, come hell, high water, or cell-shading. The reasons for loving any series are vast, and range from nostalgia to narrative, from characters to adventures, and just about everything in between. Indeed, thinking about your […]
As you may know, I’ve been re-subscribed to World of Warcraft for several months now and have been having a great time in the new expansion. One of the things that’s been most enjoyable is seeing the Outlands from a new perspective- this expansion uses a parallel universe as an […]
This week I’m following up on a discussion of game mechanics started last week. To read part I, check here. So a quick recap: Mechanics are a special subset of game rules. Rules are the foundations of games, and they do all sorts of things. In poker, for example, hand […]
In this series we’ll be looking at some principles of game design, particularly as they relate to analysis and criticism. Check out the first part, about genre in gaming, here. While calls for objectivity in games reviewing have been with the media for quite some time, Gamergate seems to have […]
World of Warcraft‘s new expansion, Warlords of Draenor, is out, an event that always revitalizes the nearly 10 year old game (for at least a few months). If you’re at all familiar with the game, you might be wondering to yourself “why did she put a picture from an old […]
In this series we’ll be looking at some principles of game design, particularly as they relate to analysis and criticism. Genre is a useful concept for consumers and producers of media- identifying and classifying various texts as being part of a certain genre creates a set expectations. Of course, genre […]
Recently I had a discussion with a friend about Gamer Gate in light of the most recent doxxing event (Felicia Day, posting about her concerns, became a target). His response? By taking what he deemed to be an offensive action (posting about her feelings on her blog) she essentially invited […]