On Game Design & Machinations

Image via Nintendo/YouTube Have you ever been monstering a race in Mario Kart and then, blam, the blue shell hits and you’ve got a few seconds of teeth-grinding frustration while you wallow about...

Recent gaming history has been littered with examples of triple-A games being released well before they are ready. Huge releases from major studios and developers such as Anthem, Cyberpunk 2077,...

The idea of a game that essentially plays itself might not sound like the most entertaining thing, but since its inception in 2016, the idle game genre has grown hugely in popularity. In this...

I've always been a fan of finding the latest and best tools for supporting my game design workflow. While these tools only help me execute my designs, the right tech can support creativity and speed...

Update 8.7.0 represents a huge milestone in our mission to deliver a platform that truly improves your game design process. This update was designed to improve and facilitate game balancing. For...

Battle Passes are looking like an established trend in free-to-play games, especially PVP, slowly substituting the older aspirations of subscription models that have only been successful for a...

Virtual economies have become a feature of an increasingly large number of modern games and, like any other economy, the in-game ones need to deal with economic factors like inflation. Handled...

As part of the Academia Panel, I was kindly invited by the Machinations crew and got the chance to demonstrate our final project for our Innovative Game Mechanics course. As I was entering my 3rd...

As more and more games transition to, or are created in, the free-to-play model, certain free-to-play mechanics have come under greater scrutiny. One of the more contentious forms of free-to-play...