Game Design Blog — Cheryl-Jean Leo

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  • Game Design

    what root and other board games gain and lose in digital format

    January 23, 2023 /

    Modern board games suffer from the difficulty of onboarding new players.  More often than not, players rely on one patient friend who has either played the game before or read all the rules prior to the gaming session. As the…

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  • Game Design

    the gender and roles of overwatch heroes

    January 9, 2023 /

    In this post, I’m tackling the gender and role distribution amongst the heroes of Blizzard’s first-person shooter game Overwatch. In a Reddit post from 2017, a then-Comparative Cultural Studies student addressed the question “Why are there so many female Mercy…

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  • Game Design

    the power of wildermyth’s modular storytelling in game design

    December 26, 2022 /

    Every once in a while, a game comes along that changes the way we think about interactive storytelling.  Undoubtedly, Wildermyth has this star quality.  The tactical RPG uses procedural generation to author stories in a unique way, chaining up series…

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  • Game Design

    justice for player two: balancing couch co-op in video games

    December 12, 2022 /

    The LEGO video games are some of my favourite couch co-op experiences.  As a franchise, they have a strong awareness of what they are: pure, wholesome, family fun, and they don’t try to be anything else.  In particular, I enjoy…

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  • Game Design

    listening to the voice of elohim in the talos principle

    November 28, 2022 /

    When I played The Talos Principle, the puzzle game by Croteam released in 2014, it brought to mind other great puzzle games.  Though it can get lost in the shuffle between the legacy of Myst (1993) and the star power…

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  • Game Design

    journal 29 review: a tedious, incomplete puzzle book

    November 14, 2022 /

    The biggest puzzle I’ve encountered with Journal 29 is why this book exists at all. This has little to do with the quality of puzzles, which cover the same range of any typical puzzle book, from obvious to unfathomable.  It’s…

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  • Game Design

    the last guardian’s trico and companions in video games

    October 24, 2022 /

    In single-player games, the hero is often accompanied by one or more companion characters.  In some cases, the companion fulfills a story purpose, such as the robot Six that accompanies you in Heaven’s Vault, providing commentary on the world’s history and…

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  • Game Design

    the subtle storytelling of the video game inside

    October 10, 2022 /

    Since it’s October again, it’s time for my traditional post about a spooky game.  Last year, I wrote about the innovative use of death in the mechanics of Limbo, and this year I’m excited to tackle the storytelling of Inside.…

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  • Game Design

    wingspan bonus cards reference list with applicable birds

    September 26, 2022 /

    Wingspan’s bonus cards showcase the thoughtful balance of the board game.  In the original game, there are twenty-six bonus cards that award the player who has them bonus points for achieving different goals. As an exercise, I’ve created a list…

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