Years ago, I started working on a social game with its core mechanic testing our understanding of the world and each other. Through feedback I added and removed: powerups, achievements, deception, mind reading. Made it way too complex, and way too simple. All starting from this

I’ve been working with SMG on LEGO Party for years, and I’m excited to finally share it with you all! I’ve written a few words on how it was made on my portfolio odowd.co This also means that I’m available to take on another project. If you need help or know someone who does, get in touch!

Enshittification of windows continues

As it turns out, I could simplify the problem and so I removed the feature / visual element. Kill your darlings; throw things away, remove anything that distracts away from the experience you're creating.

We published this year's Polaris game design papers. Some of the best game design writing for senior designers on the entire planet. Our team worked on designing collective decision making systems. polarisgamedesign.com/2024/how-to-... #gamedesign #gamedevelopment

This year I have availability for new opportunities 🎉 Working on something cool? I want to hear about it! odowd.co

Complexity is a desirable outcome, but similar to cellular automata, must be derived from simple parts multiplying into complex forms.

Started learning rust to build a web server. The current goal is to support 50,000 concurrent players within a single game instance. I have no idea whether the game will actually go viral in this way, but as my game can be played with a large twitch audience, handling is a must

Gameplay design philosophy: try to read the player’s mind. This is a simple guideline for how to design input priority. The statement is simple, but the execution can be extremely complicated depending on the game in question.

Why does 'finding the fun' fail so often as a design strategy? #gamedesign New designers are told to prototype and 'find the fun'. But the naive version of this is a garbage tactic that mostly results in poorly thought out prototypes that are never going to converge on gameplay.

Sunrise on Mt Speculation 🗻 3 day hike in. Well worth the view 📸 #photography

Working on being able to backflip

R&D within games, for me looks like lots of prototyping and playtesting. Keeping everything low stakes. Completely reworking the design, discarding elements. Testing assumptions. Fast prototyping.

I’ve been working on a social game concept for about 18 months now, and I’m keen to show you all. I’d also like to throw it all away and do something else. The process is confusing. Really difficult too. Though, I’ve found this book to be a good anchor to return to. #gamedev #art #boardgames

Arrite - let's see if this blusky thing can post previews of Amiga synthwave bangers. Let's face it - that's half my use case!

now here