Demo.
That one word had the power to make us poor game developers tremble as it always brought with it crazy work hours and vague plans. And when we were finished we always wondered — ‘was it worth it?’
Well, now on the consumer side of the fence, I can heartily answer… no.
But please, please, keep on [...]

Just noticed that Dragon Age won both Game of the Year and the best writing award at the Canadian Videogame Awards — see the Edmonton Journal article for details.
Sending a huge congrats to the Dragon Age team. Well done!

Over at IGN games there is an editorial discussing whether franchises are killing videogames. It is an interesting discussion, the idea that as gaming companies become more conservative and focus on ‘tried and true’ franchises, they stifle creativity.
There’s some measure of truth to that and I do agree that franchises drown out ’shelf and mind [...]

First game in my pile of unplayed games that I’ve decided not to finish.
I know the series has reasonable popularity but I’m finding the level design boring AND difficult (even at lower settings). The store system is slow to load and awkwardly integrated with the rest of the game. The latest meh moment for me [...]

So I’ve finally finished another game out of the massive stack of games I collected while working for BioWare.
I first started BioShock about two years ago, playing enough of it to get an initial first impression. Anyone who has played Dragon Age* will see a few of features influenced by BioShock, including the notification system [...]

I was pleased to stumble across a Dragon Age review on the Tor.com blog.
Mur Lafferty, the blogger, is enjoying the game and has written an entertaining review.
http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58659

Okay, finally finished Fallout 3. Yeah, I know it took me a year but while working at BioWare I was too busy to actually finish games… I could only try them out. So retirement has been nice in that I can actually enjoy games again. And I did enjoy this one.
Beware… there are spoilers ahead. [...]

This is the fourth of ten posts, one for each year that I worked for BioWare.
Neverwinter Nights Expansion Packs
So it was around this time that we started working on the expansion packs for Neverwinter Nights, specifically Expansion Pack #2. Yes, you read that correctly. The team I was leading was focused on the second [...]

According to BioWare’s webpage Dragon Age has gone gold. Should be in stores next week. (In case you’re just jumping in and wondering why I care, I was the lead designer on Dragon Age for the majority of its development.)
I’m thrilled for the team, years of their hard work have made this a fantastic game. [...]

This is the third of ten posts, one for each year that I worked for BioWare.
Alien Three Way
Developing a game for an already existing Intellectual Property (IP) is a complicated affair, (probably) not unlike a three way involving different alien species. No one quite knows what goes where but everyone wiggles about enthusiastically. The [...]