http://designingquests.com Jeff Howard on Game Design Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:00:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en My friend and collaborator Kris Maxwell just finished editing a video on quest spaces in which I summarize and expand on the content of Quests, chapter one. I'm very grateful to Kris, whose work can be seen at evilcyborg.com, for his help with this video and hope that it ... http://designingquests.com/?p=18 Below is a list of reviews and mentions of Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives. They were graciously collected and excerpted in this format by my publisher, AK Peters. Reviews Slashdot (External Link) September 2008 Jeff Howard’s Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narrative is an exploration of ... http://designingquests.com/?p=11 You can purchase the book Quests on Amazon here. Quests can also be purchased on the AK Peters website here, and at Barnes and Noble here. http://designingquests.com/?p=8 Hi. I'm Jeff Howard, author of Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives. I received my Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007. My dissertation was about Gnosticism, postmodern fiction, and computer-assisted teaching. Then, I wrote Quests, a book ... http://designingquests.com/?p=6 This unique take on quests, incorporating literary and digital theory, provides an excellent resource for game developers. Focused on both the theory and practice of the four main aspects of quests (spaces, objects, actors, and challenges) each theoretical section is followed by a practical section that contains exercises using the ... http://designingquests.com/?p=4 Demon’s Souls is a dark, mysterious opera whose theme, expressed through gameplay and the unfolding of a powerful narrative, is the lure and peril of Faustian bargains. By opera I refer not just to the game’s occasional bursts of swelling sound, or even to solely to its understated yet epic ... http://designingquests.com/?p=450 In Arcana Manor, the player wields a uniquely immersive and symbolic magic system to defeat the demons of a surreal Gothic mansion and unlock its secrets. Arcana Manor is a ceremonial magick simulator with a meticulously-researched system of gestural sigils, incantations, colors, and sounds that makes players feel like ... http://designingquests.com/?p=448 Quests was recently included on Sean M. Baity's amazon.com list, "Must Read Books for Aspiring Game Designers." http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R1IL3PL3SI0X0U/ref=cm_pdp_lm_title_1 I'm very appreciative of this listing, and it's cool to see Mr. Baity's credentials in terms of the many games which he has worked on as senior designer at electronic arts. http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,8377/ http://designingquests.com/?p=440 I just posted two new videos of gameplay footage from the most recent build of Arcana Manor (7-27-09). The video has two parts. The first part demonstrates several new features, including: musical tones that correspond to colors and planets in the magic system, mountable weapons based on the tarot suits, elemental projectiles flung from melee ... http://designingquests.com/?p=434 I added two AI bots to my game prototype, and the process took a long time and a lot of work.  I ended up learning how to use echo statements to track the loading of the many files that I had changed and to determine where a particular file was ... http://designingquests.com/?p=431