Before returning home, I spent one last day in Vienna, having a few significant realizations about my month-long European travels.
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Tag: psychology
What I learned from the first playtest of my game
I finally let someone else play my in-development Postmortem game, as I set next to them silently, grabbed a notepad, and watched. After an hour and two pages of notes, I learned a lot not just about my game, but game design itself!
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Banality of Evil – video game moral choices vs. pragmatism
The banality of moral choices in games, boiling down to “Choose between being an Angel or Satan” has been criticized ad nauseum. But even with properly ambiguous gray areas, moral dilemmas don’t fully work in games because at their core they are just, well… games.
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How cornflakes and PayPal made me appreciate Apple’s philosophy
Today I went to buy cornflakes – but which? Plain, honey, almonds, clusters, pecan… What brand? Honey Bunches, Kellogs, Special K, Safeway… God, why do I need to pick between so many almost-identical choices? I want just one, just one that… works.
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Using games to change ourselves
Open-world games like Skyrim or GTA create increasingly complex environments to explore. Whether an evil dual-wielding barbarian or Russian heartbroken thug, the gamer’s playstyle is often characterized by certain underlying tendencies and patterns, reflecting his unique personality traits. But if games can reveal our personality, could they also not be used to fundamentally change it?