Gamasutra Member Blogs: From Survival Horror To Skirmishes In StarCraft AI

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, including the balance of survival horror design, the rise of art-focused games, and a competition for StarCraft AI.] Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. 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 - The Fine Balance Of Survival Horror Design And Dead Space 2 (Kamruz Mos) Kamruz Mos outlines the key elements of survival horror design, and uses Dead Space 2 as an example of a game that pushes its combat mechanics a bit too far away from this delicate balance. - Handcuffing The Player - Forcing Cooperative Gameplay And Why It Is Wrong (Josh Bycer) Looking at recent titles that emphasize co-op over single player experiences, Josh Bycer explains how some games successfully integrate cooperative play, and how others have missed the mark. - Theme And Gameplay Or Theme Vs. Gameplay (Marcus Montgomery) With the recent rise of smaller, art-driven titles like Limbo and Shank, Marcus Montgomery considers the relationship between gameplay and visual style, and how each element influences a game's overall quality. - What Makes A Good Year For Games? (Isaiah Taylor) Isaiah Taylor looks at the current business trends of the industry, wondering whether the industry needs to strive for growth year-over-year, or if a little economic fluctuation can still lead to a healthy market. - The StarCraft AI Competition (Ben Weber) Ben Weber discusses his involvement in the AIIDE 2010 StarCraft AI Competition, in which students, hobbyists, and developers pitted their own AI-controlled bots against each other in games of StarCraft II to see which programmer could muster the most formidable opposition.