David Stark
How big is a tile in a roguelike or similar game? What shape does it have? I've been playing (and modding) a lot of Caves of Qud, so this is something I'm thinking about again. I'd love to see or make a roguelike where the levels are truly three-dimensional rather than 2D levels connected by...
David Stark
In this post, I'm going to describe how I would large-scale mod Minecraft to make it better, especially for a more engaging and social multiplayer experience. This is a complete pie-in-the-sky thing, as it's probably far too complicated for me to create. Movement Different blocks have different...
David Stark
A few months ago, I got introduced to Caverna at a board game evening. Caverna is pretty much "Dwarf Fortress: The Board Game" in that you run a group of dwarves digging out caverns, creating a living space, mining and farming. Unsurprisingly, this got me to start playing Dwarf Fortress itself...
David Stark
Something I've been chewing on for a while is how to make an "adventure" game that is more about travel than about fights or isolated puzzles. If you look at something like Tolkien, a lot of the adventure is about getting from A to B, rather than fighting things or figuring stuff out. But in...
David Stark
On the advice of Twitter, I have finally bought and played Don't Starve. I like it a lot. Here's how it fits into my earlier thoughts about survival games: I've been playing it pretty heavily over the last few days. Before I bought it, I was told that it's one of those games (like Minecraft and to...
David Stark
Once you have survived in a survival game, what do you do? You have found or made clothing, shelter, a steady source of food, means to defend yourself and heal yourself. You have mapped the dangers of your environment and can defeat or avoid enemies. What comes next? What I enjoy about the...
David Stark
On reflection, I think the adjusting prices thing is going to have to be a bit more detailed than just reducing everything by X%. The way to do it, I think, is to first establish reasonable conversion factors between emerald and raw materials. For example, let's say one emerald is intrinsically...