For many years I struggled to teach my students how to make the leap from designing tabletop games to designing video games. In particular, students without a programming background would consistently have problems defining a video game design as a series of concrete steps that do not leave gaping holes in the game algorithms.

Then one semester I…[Read more]

If you use Conway’s Game of Life in your class, you might want to check out the version I just added to my website.

Most browser-based version of the game are in Java–which is a problem for my classes because the workstations all have it disabled. The version on my site is all in Javascript, so it should run more easily on most machines (though…[Read more]

I just wanted to share that I have a book coming out in March from Focal Press. It’s called Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers. It’s intended as a textbook for introducing college students to game design & development. The publisher isn’t taking orders for examination copies yet, but I’ll let everyone know when they are. The book’s…[Read more]