Sirlin.Net - Game Design

We discuss the drama created by stories that pose moral questions. Stories set outside the law make us think even more about these questions, so that could explain why so many popular stories have settings that take us outside of our familiar system of laws. We tie this into games with examples from The Walking Dead game and A Tale in the Desert.

Hosts: David Sirlin & Sean "MrGPhantome" Washington

We discuss sequels to movies and games. Sequel can mean a lot of different kinds of things, so we sort out the different kinds of sequels. This leads up to a discussion about how to handle sequels in highly replayable games. 

Hosts: David Sirlin & Sean "MrGPhantome" Washington

In this episode, we discuss the many problems with games where players ban each other's characters. We touch on League of Legends, DOTA2, and Heroes of the Storm, though this discussion is applicable to any form of in-game banning in any game.

An unusual guest talks about the worst clock in the world.

Hosts: David Sirlin & Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi

We discuss the Street Fighter 5 trailer as well as the games we're playing now: Super Mario 3D World, Smash Bros. 4, Transistor, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Sirlin gives an award for worst menus in a game while Aphotix gushes about a shooter.

Hosts: David Sirlin, Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi, and Sean "MrGPhantome" Washington.

In this episode, we discuss the kind of things that go wrong when creating rules for a tournament. The rules for high profile tournaments are sometimes surprisingly bad, yet even when we avoid the obvious problems, it's still very difficult to make completely fair rules. Sirlin explains the rules he chose for his own games as well.

Special guest Garcia1000 and Sirlin discuss the curious case of Nintendo.

Hosts: David Sirlin & Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi

In this episode, we discuss uneven playfields in competitive games. That's when a competitive game gives some players a material advantage, rather than being fair. Although fairness should be a basic premise of a competitive game, MOST competitive games have unfortunately become uneven playfields, and players seem to accept this. That's tragic to Sirlin and Aphotix. 

Garcia1000 explains that his friends like kingmaker and collusion in games, which are usually considered bad properties.

Hosts: David Sirlin & Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi

In this episode, we discuss the common problems with the design of cooperative games. We cover tabletop games as well as video games.

MrGPhantome complains about his friends' gaming tastes in a guest segment.

Hosts: David Sirlin & Matt "Aphotix" DeMasi

Here's the first episode of my new podcast. In this episode, I discuss the concept of Cocaine Logic—the fallacy that "helps the player win" means "good to exist in the game design". I also discuss randomness in games and how to make games that are more resistant to be being solved.

Garcia1000 enlightens us all in a guest segment.