Gamasutra Member Blogs: From StarCraft To Deus Ex

Author: by Staff

In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write a postmortem on a platformer, how Deus Ex lets players create their own stories and how StarCraft is the best game… and the worst. Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. Our favorite blog post of the week will earn its author a lifetime subscription to Gamasutra's sister publication, Game Developer magazine. (All magazine recipients outside of the United States or Canada will receive lifetime electronic subscriptions.) We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. Here are the top member blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Member Blogs - Run Forever! Jumpfinity! Postmortem (Matt Fister) On Matt Fister's blog, he and cohort Mark Cerritelli write about what went right and wrong with their procedurally generated platforming game, Run Forever! Jumpfinity! for the iPhone. For his effort, Matt will receive a lifetime subscription to Gamasutra sister publication Game Developer magazine. - Dynamic storytelling and world building in Deus Ex (Xander Markham) Xander Markham is back, and he writes: "In an era where big-budget games have all semblance of personality formula'd and focus-grouped into anonymity, Deus Ex feels like a look back to a time when the machine of game production was still powered by a human soul." Click through to see why. - The Elegance Of Word Economy (Patrick Coan) What does Patrick Coan mean by "word economy"?: "During production, can I please just get a 'Yeah, I think we should bake the normals and test it under the the engine's dynamic light set-up.' Instead of a 3 minute soliloquy addressing your inner-most premonition on how you feel about the process?" - Starcraft - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. (Josh Bycer) Josh Bycer revisits Blizzard's StarCraft, which he says is excellent in its design, but "fails one of the most important tests of a great game, which is teaching the player to actually play the game." - Postmortem of an Educational iPhone Game for Kids (Traci Lawson) Traci Lawson writes about lessons learned while producing a game "designed to put all the flash card and quiz apps in their place."