Chicago Comic Con is go!

Hey folks, good news! Sinister Design is going to have a booth at this year’s Chicago Comic Con! The show hours are as follows: Thursday, August 11, 2011:    5pm – 9pm Friday, August 12, 2011:    12 NOON – 8pm Saturday, August 13, 2011:    10am – 7pm Sunday,…

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Using Details to Craft a Coherent Game World

The RPG is an inherently inelegant creature. It is something of a Frankenstein monster, a suite of different gameplay systems stitched together into a shambling chimera. Character creation, simulated markets, item management, navigation, combat, stealth, dialogue, puzzles, class and skill trees–as a developer, it is difficult enough simply to make…

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Gearing up for the next big update

Soon–within the next few weeks–I’m going to release an updated version of Telepath RPG: Servants of God. Starting with that update, the game is going to be distributed exclusively as an AIR installer, meaning that it can be installed and played on any computer that runs Windows, Mac or Linux.…

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12 ways to improve turn-based RPG combat systems

In my last opinion piece, I provoked a certain subsection of the world of RPG enthusiasts by slaughtering a particularly sacred cow: the D&D-style combat system. A surprising number of people wrote in agreeing with me. Predictably, however, others responded in one of two ways: (1) “So you think a…

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The battle system I wish RPGs would stop using

Dungeons and Dragons, son of Chainmail, is the great granddaddy of the modern role-playing game. Its importance cannot be overstated: not only was it revolutionary for its time, it has also directly inspired many of the early computer RPGs on which the genre is now based. Because of D&D’s power…

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The advantages of shattering your game

Sometimes, in order to save something, you have to shatter it. Making Telepath RPG: Servants of God has taught me some hard lessons about the importance of modularity in designing a larger game. I’ve finally reached a point where, in order to finish creating the game, I must break it…

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So you created an action RPG. Stop congratulating yourself.

A recent Gamasutra interview with Matt Findley has caused a firestorm of debate to erupt across the internet concerning the continued vitality of turn-based RPGs. Findley is an alum of the now-defunct development studio Black Isle, which produced legitimately brilliant turn-based RPGs like Fallout. So you can understand why an…

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TSoG final boss music is here!

The final boss music for Telepath RPG: Servants of God has been…uh…finalized. I’ve made the track available on Youtube for those of you curious to hear it and unafraid of having portions of the game spoiled for you. Speaking of which: SPOILERS AHEAD.

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