Difficulty in games – and how Breath of the wild does it well

Designing your game for the right difficulty level is a challenge. We've all been at the point where we've played a game that was either too easy or too difficult. And especially in the beginning, when we don't know what to expect from a game and when we haven't grasped all the dynamics and mechanics … Continue reading Difficulty in games – and how Breath of the wild does it well →

Savegames III – Zelda

If we are looking at games and how they implement the savegame mechanic to support their immersion and their creation of the game world, we need to talk about the first part in the Zelda series that was released on the NES console. In 1986, the first Zelda game was released on the then Famicom … Continue reading Savegames III – Zelda →

The savegame mechanic in Resident Evil

In the earlier blog post about how the save game mechanic and influences the immersion and the gameplay, we had dissected various save game implementations. If we are looking at the Resident Evil implementation of saving and loading games, we will realize that the development team found a very interesting way of incorporating the save … Continue reading The savegame mechanic in Resident Evil →

Modernizing retro game scenes with AI

Over at one of my favorite Retro Game Forums stayforever.de, there's a thread about turning retro game art and scenes into realistic photos, leveraging generative AI like ChatGPT or Copilot and the like. What a fantastic experiment that is - I tried it out myself and enjoyed a good two hours, converting a number of … Continue reading Modernizing retro game scenes with AI →

Larry and the telemetry treasure

I am looking into how feedback and quality control happened in our beloved games in the 80s and 90s and came across something I learned that I want to share. As I research the subject space, it becomes apparent that especially in the 80s, structured testing and feedback gathering wasn't necessarily a very structured task … Continue reading Larry and the telemetry treasure →

Learning about the CD32

I found an offer for a Commodore Amiga CD32 that I could not refuse. I have never owned a CD32 in my childhood, but my curiosity now and what I'd read so far made me accept the offer, and explore. It's finally here and it's in fantastic shape: I connected it to my projector, because … Continue reading Learning about the CD32 →

Hotseat playing

I have been chatting with a friend about how fun the good old days were when we played games, sitting in front of a (home) computer. Where have these days gone, when you played a game with your friends, and you'd pass the keyboard and mouse along after your turn, waiting for everybody to finish … Continue reading Hotseat playing →

Re-releases and bigbox releases

I must say that I'm positively surprised by a recent experience that I've had with one of the wonderful things that the Internet offers that weren't there 15 years ago. Clearly I'm a retro enthusiast and I like playing retro games, collecting retro hardware, and displaying things that I still have from that area or … Continue reading Re-releases and bigbox releases →

Combining timelines in Railroad Tycoon

Railroad Tycoon is trying to stretch two interesting concepts together that you can’t really marry together, because they work on two scales, magnitudes, if you will. In Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon, you’re trying to grow your railroad business, connecting cities, fuel economies in cities and regions and you’re trying to be faster than your competition, … Continue reading Combining timelines in Railroad Tycoon →

Asking LLMs what you can’t ask fellow gamers

So one of the best use cases for AI or LLMs more specifically is probably this: you won’t get a more neutral, straightforward answer without any emotions detached to this question than his – any human being who knows, will break into sweats, cursing 😊