The Arrogance of Boss Fights

September 2, 2021December 17, 2021 ~ Joe Mahoney

I posted a link on MeFi to John Walker’s lament about boss fights in video games. I think the comments generally came down on the side of well-designed boss fights and anti “git gud.”

Making Accounting with Emma

July 14, 2021December 17, 2021 ~ Joe Mahoney

My buddy Dan Jacka recently finished making a video game called Accounting With Emma and he’s published a wonderful write-up about why he made the game, the tools he used, and what he had to learn to finish it

This is the first game I’ve ever polished. I’ve made throwaway efforts before, but for Accounting with Emma I was motivated to produce an appealing and useful resource for people trying to understand accounting. Polishing meant having decent graphics and music, flourishes with hints, sound effects and animations, and a story with beginning, middle and satisfying end.

You can play Accounting With Emma on itch.io. Give it a go! It’s really well polished and you might even learn something!

Classic Game Postmortem: Sid Meier’s Civilisation

May 14, 2021December 17, 2021 ~ Joe Mahoney

Civilization’s 1 and 2 were perfect games for me. I spent hundreds of hours building empires and crushing my neighbours beneath the tracks of my tanks. The later versions added concepts I loved but the endgame became tedious. I haven’t played versions 5 and 6.

In this GDC talk Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley go fairly deep into the design, programming of the first Civilization, talking about the constraints and design philosophy that made the game a hit and set the series up for success.

The Making of Oblivion

April 30, 2021December 17, 2021 ~ Joe Mahoney

March marked the 15th anniversay of the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Here’s look at how Bethesda made it. Warning: this movie may cause you to reinstall the game.

Double Fine Adventure

April 16, 2021December 17, 2021 ~ Joe Mahoney

Double Fine Adventure is a behind-the-scenes documentary series chronicling the making of Broken Age, from Kickstarter promotion through to distribution on multiple platforms.

It’s a 20-episode series and it’s as bingeable as anything you’ll find on Netflix. All the nuts and bolts of making a game are covered but, more importantly, you feel like you get to know the Double Fine team as they put in the work to create a game they are proud of.

Double Fine Adventure is about those people, more than anything else. I’d work there in a heartbeat.

I tend to watch the series every year or so and I always come away with a renewed appreciation of the fact that good things are made by people who really care about what they’re doing.