As an exercise, I started thinking about how to improve on online job applications. One of the major pain-points is importing a resume in a way that keeps the design on the resume intact, but still uses all of the text to fill out relevant information on the job application.
I wanted to focus on functionality instead of creating this design from square one, so I decided to try to mimic the style of another well-known and usable service, Trello. If you arenāt familiar with Trello, itās a very simple kanban board to keep track of tasks. If you are familiar with Trello, youāll notice that this design looks almost exactly like it could be an existing Trello product.
Since itās really just for fun, I really only documented a few key behaviors to illustrate basic functionality. Enjoy!
http://txti.es/dasut - This is a simple page to direct people to my presence on social media. Sort of an introduction. Itās very useful for having a minimal personal portal that works predictably across all devices and isnāt fancy.
http://microbiologynetwork.com/Ā - This website is complex, and was done with the help of a Rochester company called Biznetix that has a really interesting CMS that manages everything in the website around event promotion and ticket sales as well as web-conferences.
Recently I experienced what was one of the saddest moments of my career when, while re-watching āReturn of the Jediā for the 116th time, I realized I was coaching a company that was ... the Empire. Surely you remember the movie's very first scene? Darth Vader arrives on the Death Star to help put the long-delayed project back on schedule.
Great post on analogues between Star Wars and some hard lessons in agile development.
Iāve been doing a lot of work on level design, and wanted to take a stab at a classic sort ofĀ ādungeonā for tabletop gaming.
The picture here is of a mine that was set up by people that donāt really know much about mining, they got lucky and hit a vein, and are learning as they go. You can see there are a lot of started corridors that they havenāt expanded yet, and sort of a corkscrew silo thing that allows them to fork off in different directions at different depths. Then there is a final small room leading to an exit a good ways below the entrance.
For those of you running tabletop games, feel free to use this map however you like (as long as you arenāt trying to make money off of it). I have labelled the rooms as I plan to use them with loose adherence to the five-room dungeon method of level design. Check out the linked articles below the fold if you are interested in that method, and I will explain briefly below how this particular map is laid out.
Some links on the five-room method:
6 Methods For Making Dungeons More Interesting
I think this article may be the genesis of the āfive room dungeonāĀ
The first explored areas are now sort of a space for living and holding gear, you can see they started out mining and building corridors there, but just decided to use that area for other purposes and proceed with a more organized mine layout on the right side of the map. In the second pic you will see keys there, as this two rooms are ideal for information and/or items/keys that allow the party passage through the middle. There are two potentialĀ ālocked doorā barriers filled in, if you want to encourage exploring the whole dungeon, leave them both in, otherwise you can easily get away with only one barricade.
One they get to the right side of the map, you can see why they abandoned their original layout, they started to sort of corkscrew down and branch off at different levels. Iām sure neither of these strategies would be used by anyone with real mining experience, but it shows them learning as they go.
For those that have looked into theĀ āfive-room dungeonā method, in my second picture I have labelled the rooms loosely according to my version of that philosophy. Below Iāll try to explain my approach without giving you too-specific info that only works in my particular campaign:
1 - Entrance/Guardian: The entrance is essentially on top of a big cliff, even knowing itās existence and location is going to be a process, let alone getting to it.
2 - Puzzle or Roleplaying Challenge: This initial room puts the players in contact with those mining the place, and learn that things arenāt as straight-forward as they have thought.
3 - Setback or Red Herring: There are two rooms labeled 3, they are two areas to explore that will not directly allow players to proceed through them, but give information and items that will allow them to backtrack and then proceed through the areas they were previously unable to get through.
Of course, one of the rooms (probably whichever they encounter second) has a nice combat challenge, and then allows the players the information/loot/whatever to proceed. This encourages them to think they might be headed into theĀ āboss fightā when itās not truly the climax yet. But it rewards the players with the exact thing they needed to move forward.
4 - Climax: In a large room, with a gigantic spiral staircase leading down, they finally encounter the climactic event/boss-fight/et cetera. When this is dealt with, they will explore the corridors and find the exit leading to...
5 - Reward/Twist: TheĀ āloot roomā in this map also serves as an area to stage a sort of twist to the story that motivated them throughout the dungeon.Ā
When players exit here, they find themselves at the bottom of the cliff in a nice hidden entrance/exit. It makes travel back where they came from easier, as well as accessing this area in the future.
People ask this of me a lot. I get it, you're really proud of your new game mechanic or your original theme or some other thing about your precious IP that is gonna be worth bajillions.
Working on some pog-sized character tokens for a mythical western-themed RPG in progress. The style Iām going for is a cross between HBOās Deadwood and the Borderlands video games.
These are my first pass at a few characters straight from Deadwood.
UX design is about removing problems from the user. Game design is about giving problems to the user. In both cases you look at users' cognitive reasoning and process capacity.
I've come to love craft foamāthe stuff you can pick up at craft stores like Michael's. While it's often pre-cut into horrible holiday craft kits,Ā you can also get it in simple rectangles with a layer of wicked-strong, pre-applied adhesive. Craft foam is light (which makes it cheap to mail), cuts like butter with a sharp x-acto knife, drills easily, and comes in a thickness that is both easy and pleasant to pick up off the table.Ā
Inspiring TED talk about the past and future impact gaming can have in our world. This should be a mandatory introduction for any new game designers out there.
Jane McGonigal is an incredible speaker. I can't recommend her talks highly enough. A project of her's, Superbetter, is also really inspiring. Here's a link to her talk about the origin of that project.
Integrating theme and mechanics: āThe closer you can tie your core mechanics to your theme, the more your players will accept those mechanics, and the more the game will be āaboutā what you say itās about:
