dev diary

Leveling Up In Rise of the Argonauts

2:20AM Mike Fahey | Rise of the Argonauts lead designer Charlie Price explains the rather innovative leveling system in Codemasters and Liquid Entertainment’s upcoming action RPG. While it’s essentially just a points for powers system, painting it as a favour system, assigning points through deeds and having the character dedicate those deeds to the god of his or her choosing adds a degree of immersion to a system that generally pulls you right out of the game. An excellent example of dressing up a standard mechanic to make it seem like something entirely different. Nicely done. More »

Prince Of Persia: Balancing Open World With Story

7:30PM Mike Fahey | Prince of Persia producer Ben Mattes, narrative designer Andrew Walsh, and level designer Michael McIntyre discuss the challenges of balancing a rich, immersive story with the open-world nature of the new game. Past PoP games have been strictly linear affairs, making it much easier to know how long the characters have been together, what they’ve already accomplished, etc. I think their solution is rather interesting, but of course I’ll have to see it in practice. More »

New Sonic Chronicles The Dark Brotherhood Developer Diary

5:00AM Adam Barenblat | Sonic Chronicles — being the first Sonic game I’ve been excited for in years — is looking pretty solid. Bioware CEO Raymond Muzyka and President Greg Zeschuk give us insight into some of the things the team has been thinking about when combining a Sonic game and RPG-style play. The game will hit stores September 30th. More »