Comment by ghostzilla
3 days ago
Jesse Schell's book is a great read beyond game design.
Thanks for the other links.
To leave something in return, here's something I read the other day and kept thinking about it (I'm designing on a PvP motion based game)
"In competitive games, there is little more valuable than knowing the mind of the opponent, which the Japanese call “yomi.”
As a side note, I would even argue that the “strategic depth” of a game should be defined almost entirely on its ability to support and reward yomi."
The Yomi Layer concept is a reminder that moves need to have counters. If you know what the opponent will do, you should generally have some way of dealing with that.
I have tons of friends that took his classes at CMU, as much as everything he says sounds good I don't know a single person that has ever enjoyed a game he made. Because of that, I have to assume what he says is either fluff or wrong even if i can't perceive why exactly
That's interesting, it hasn't occurred to me to check his games. That said, I remember reading that Machiaveli was once given a territory to govern and he was terrible at it, despite The Prince. It may be a thing about teachers vs doers.
THAT said, there is a lot of intersting things one can learn from John Carmack, so there's an exception to every rule.
>That said, I remember reading that Machiaveli was once given a territory to govern and he was terrible at it, despite The Prince.
this is a great articulation of what i'm trying to say thanks
Obviously you’d be a better judge than I am given your inside knowledge, but your comment reminds me of the many virtuoso musicians who don’t really make music people like. There’s a gap between technical ability and taste, artfulness.
It's not that he's making games too avant garde or something that might be going over my head. His company just makes corporate slop, not a single enjoyable game amongst them
I feel a great deal of the games Schell produces are for clients (like ports) or serve as a more in-depth proof of concept.
I think the client work pays the bills though, looking at their catalog.
Yep, but that's a totally separate thing from making good games
1 reply →