Category: game design

The well-made tutorial of Zelda: A Link to the past

In my playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, I realized how underappreciated the first 45 minutes of the game really are. You may call it tutorial, you may call it starting sequence that leads you into the game: it's the beginning of the story, at which Link wakes up in … Continue reading The well-made tutorial of Zelda: A Link to the past →

Sim City just stands out

SimCity is a fascinating game. Fascinating what it stands for, what it delivered and what doors opened for later games to go through. Released 1989 on Amiga and Macintosh, SimCity is a city building and management simulation built by Maxis. It was ported to numerous platforms, including DOS, Windows, SNES, PC-98, FM-Towns and OS/2. The … Continue reading Sim City just stands out →

In-Game Help in Zelda: A Link to the Past: Game hints in A Link to the Past

One of the things that I've recognized in my latest playthrough of Zelda: A Link to the Past is, that it also has a built-in help system. You might remember that particular design choice not as a hint system, but as the eldest from Kakariko, that you meet early in the game, and then later … Continue reading In-Game Help in Zelda: A Link to the Past: Game hints in A Link to the Past →

What would (more) achievements in Zelda look like?

I have been wondering about why Nintendo haven't implemented a good achievement system to the Switch and the Switch2 consoles, similar to what their primary competitors Microsoft and Sony did for their respective consoles a long time ago. Microsoft with the Xbox 360 has been quite successful integrating that in the emerging online experience. Especially … Continue reading What would (more) achievements in Zelda look like? →

Difficulty sliders don’t work

I've been looking at difficulty settings in games for quite a while now. Different games solve the problem of keeping difficulty entertaining for their players in different ways and clearly there is also a lot of nuance of what difficulty means for games of different genres and different styles and the audiences that game designers … Continue reading Difficulty sliders don’t work →