DavidZobrist
David joined
I'm an independent game designer currently located in Berlin.
My Blogs
Curvy hits the iTunes store this Sunday. What is it? It's a small game inspired by the second ever created video game, Tennis for Two.
"Tennis For Two was an electronic game developed in 1958 on a Donner Model 30 analog computer, which simulates a game of tennis or ping pong on an oscilloscope. Created by American physicist William Higinbotham for visitors at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, it is important in the history of video games as one of the first electronic games to use a graphical display."
So what is curvy? When I saw this simple and beautiful first steps of video games I knew I have to make a small game honoring it. So I created this game called "Curvy". As with my latest game Three Points I kept things simple but elegant.
You play it with a simple tap which changes the direction of the ball. The ball reacts physically like a real ball so you will have to find right timing to get the control properly.
Your goal is to guide the ball towards the randomly appearing green balls, to score. If the Ball drops out of the screen you lose.
More about it tomorrow evening!
Good night,
Dave
Free Game Download: Itunes.apple.com
This little pug dreams of becoming a big star on Youtube! Help him stay happy by stroking his belly and giving his fans a good show. Gain fame, pimp your pug!
Music: Youtube.com
Licence: Goo.gl
Wednesday I experienced an extreme down, I had to send away my girlfriend which came over. Since I couldn't deal with anyone else and just had to be alone. She is awesome and understood the situation, she supported me since the beginning.I arrived on a another big crossroad right now.
The founding which had financially backed me up the last 6 months, just expired. So I'm totally on my own with far to less income to survive of it. A ex-collegeau, contacted me and told me about a job offer at King Berlin, the company which made candy crush, a position as level designer is available. This guy already organized another good job for me back than at Young Internet/Goodbeans. We had a very inspiring talk on a dinner together with his girlfriend, as a Result I made the newest game "1 Power" which I handed in to Apple today.But the point is that there would be now the choice to apply with the help of Jakob at King for the open position and become an employe again. This sounds perfect for the careful, fearful and sometimes wise voice in me, since I still could develop apps on the side.
But on this wednesday this exploded in me and ate me from inside out. I would not have the energy to continue doing what I do, I would delay or even abandon my real destiny, of course I would work on games at King and it would be awesome for my resume but...It makes me so sad inside…but of course I have to live of something… But I just feel like I'm about to start.. maybe just a bit longer…I'm growing so much right now...I have money left for the next 3-4 months and could save some extra 1-2 month by moving to my girlfriend and rent out my current place.
So sail to a save harbor or walk into the darkness to see what it brings?
Easy to learn hard to master
This is one of the famous game designer phrases that gets slammed right in your face if you put your nose into the gaming industry.
It is primarily referring to game mechanics, but also can be put in relation to the overall game experience. Since your overall game challenge curve should also rise from the bottom up.
For me good games have game mechanics with depth but almost none intial confronting complexity therefore they are easy to pick up.
Example Street fighters:
Depth Layer 1: Hands on! You can just start playing the game by mashing some buttons, you don't have to understand what a single button does and immiediet can start bash the shit out of opponents.
Depth Layer 2: The basics! You will get an advantage by learning what each button does and getting a feeling for the timing and the range of your moves.
Depth Layer 3: Mastery! Due the exact timed button combinations you can fire off powerful combos and transform yourself into a wild tornado of destruction, which rewards your time investment into the game.
Time Well Spend!
Beeing able to become better at a game, or to accumulate more virtual goods is an important key motivator for long term player engagement.
You want to be able to show off your time spent (very phylsophical).
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