Peter Hagen

People are the most engaged in an activity when they feel like they are highly skilled at it, and are using that skill to confront a great challenge.

That sets down the most essential considerations for designing good gameplay:

1. It has to present a challenge that the player can meet.


2. The player has to be able to get good at it.

The second part is... See more

I don't have any data to back this up, but I suspect that most companies don't need more than 20 developers, with some needing 20 to 50 developers, and only a handful needing between 50 and 100 developers. Once you cross the 100 developer mark, I think you need to start thinking about whether the scope of your product(s) isn't getting out of hand... See more

A walk-n-talk works like this: gather 5-10 curious, kind, generous, patient, inspiring people and set a walking course through the countryside for a week, plus or minus a day or two. A week works well because it may take a day or two or three for people to open up, for the so-called “situational extroverts” to fully emerge from their shells, for... See more

One of the best ways to build the confidence to get started and enter the exploratory process of finding a solution is to set as well-defined a search space as you can: outline the "hard edges". Setting this defined space gives you constraints to comfortably work within, almost like a cozy room with padded walls where we've got the freedom to... See more

So How Can You Survive?

Simple. You provide something nobody else can ever provide. Something cool and distinctive that people will rather pay money for your game than get someone else's for free.

Consider me. I'm an OK programmer. I'm not good at art and visual stuff, and I haven't been since I was a kid.

But I can write well. I make good settings... See more