the game design of taskmaster: meaningful choices
In my previous post in The Game Design of Taskmaster series, I wrote about the probability of two contestants making the same choice. This post will take a step back and focus on the concept of meaningful choices. A game…
the game design of taskmaster: indirect control
Indirect control is one of my favourite topics in game design, and it’s no surprise that it can be found in the tasks in the television game show Taskmaster. But, first, what is indirect control? Game designer Jesse Schell describes…
the game design of taskmaster: fun to watch vs. fun to play
Let’s start with this statement: Taskmaster is not a game. It is a comedy panel television show, with a format that lends itself to incorporating game elements in the form of tasks. This means that the audience for Taskmaster is…
the gender and roles of overwatch heroes
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…
listening to the voice of elohim in the talos principle
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…
inventing new player types outside the bartle taxonomy’s four
In 1996, co-creator of the first Multi-User Dungeon game (MUD) Richard Bartle published his theory of four player types. With his theory outlining the motivations of and interactions between achievers, explorers, killers and socialisers1, Bartle set a standard for the…
beyond bartle’s taxonomy: discover your game’s player types
Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types, or Player Type Theory1, is inescapable when learning about game design. Since Richard Bartle put down in writing the four player types he found in Multi-User Dungeon games (MUDs) in 1996, the theory has become…
league of legends challenges: a flawed achievement system
In May 2022, Riot Games released a new achievement system for League of Legends. “Challenges” launched with over 300 goals. Each of these challenges has multiple tiers that level up from Iron to Master. Frankly, League of Legends has needed an…
raft is a video game about raft-building, not survival
Raft is a raft-building game first, and a survival game second. The open world video game was developed by Redbeet Interactive, and published by Axolot Games. It was released on Steam as an early access title in May 2018, and…
