So, I wrote the last one about destiny with a kind of finality. At the time, it was because Bungie was going in a direction that meant I couldn’t stick with the game. I wanted to; believe me, I wanted to. It was Marathon that got me through living in…

“You’ve done too much original research” was the reason he gave me for not giving me a perfect score. “You have a great paper here, really interesting conclusions, but even though you hit the number of sources I asked for, you should have cited more scholars. Where are you coming…

What’s your favorite single moment in a video game? Like… what moment do you look back on fondly, what moment gets you to evangelize the game to everyone who will listen? When I ask people this question, without fail, each and every one tells me about their favorite story beat. …

Hi, everyone. I’m Doc Burford, and for a long time, I’ve been making, consulting on, and explaining video game design to people. Today, I’d like to let you in on a little secret: because video games are an art form, they can be understood. Over the years, as I’ve discussed…

What a year. Instead of reflecting on it like a lot of people will and saying things like “wow, what a year,” I’m going to tell you this: I shipped a video game despite it all, alongside the fine folks at Mischief, particularly one of my best buds in the…

You’re going to have to trust me on this one. It happened at GDC. We were walking through the expo hall — I couldn’t afford a pass to the talks — and we were talking about a game. “What happened with that?” one of us asked. I won’t tell you…

This piece was originally slated for another publication a few years ago. It didn’t get published. So here it is. Republished from my now defunct Tumblr blog. Screenshots are all ones I took when playing Bloodborne. This time, I’m confident I have him. Father Gascgoine has been plaguing me for…

So! I wrote an article about why NFTs are bad for game design (please read it first). Tons of discourse, lots of really good feedback, and a handful of cryptobros in my mentions. …

Right, so, you’ve probably read a bunch of great stuff from other people on why NFTs are bad, but I also know how reading things on the internet works, maybe you haven’t. So, here’s the really simple version… (but first: hey ya’ll, I’m sick! like really sick! I just had…