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…
hearthstone mercenaries mode is only good for the grind
The most recent new mode to arrive in Hearthstone was Mercenaries, in October 2021. Another distinct departure from traditional Hearthstone, this also differed from Battlegrounds and Duels in interesting ways. One notable trait was the procedural generation of maps of…
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…
hearthstone duels is its best designed game mode, with the least support
Duels was the Hearthstone mode we all knew was coming. Its format was the most logical next step for a collectible card game whose number of cards and mechanics were growing at an unsustainable rate. Personally, I think Duels is…
best of palace games escape rooms: houdini, roosevelt or edison?
Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to have played all of Palace Games’ in-person escape rooms. Located at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Palace Games offers the trio of The Great Houdini Escape Room, The Roosevelt…
all league of legends challenges and titles, and how to earn them
League of Legends released its achievement system, Challenges, earlier this month. However, the challenges aren’t very well-organised and the system is rather complex. Titles that can be displayed under your name were also released, but it’s difficult to find out what…
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…
hearthstone battlegrounds: a card-based auto battler experiment in game design
2019. The year before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world. In games, this was the year of the auto battler. Dota’s Auto Chess mod debuted in January, becoming a resounding success. By June, Riot had jumped on the trend,…
arcane’s silco is not league of legends champion material
The success of the League of Legends animated series Arcane has a lot to do with its characters. Namely, villain-turned-father-figure Silco became a standout favourite of the series. For Riot, one might imagine that this television property would serve as a goldmine for…
