Table of Contents 1. Olive & Forest One of the brightest people I ever met once handed me a book. He said that it would be one of the most important things I would ever read. That book? The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. And he was absolutely correct. I hadn’t heard of it at the time, but within many industries, it is considered the seminal text for understanding not only the importance of design, but the core ethos behind it. Norman identifies two main problems with humanity’s collective approach to design. The first is the brazen way designers often ignore user experience while chasing the goal of creating endless capabilities. The second problem is the way those designers capitalize on human beings’ natural instinct to blame themselves for not understanding an object or interaction with an overly complicated design. But making something easier to use should not just be some placating act of kindness; it should be the actual point of the design … [Read more...] about Red Dead Redemption 2: six months later
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Morrowind: An oral history
You never forget a place like Morrowind. It’s like something out of a dream, only you’ve actually been there. Maybe you used a mouse and keyboard, or the Xbox “Duke” controller, to visit it. But that doesn’t make it any less real. While hardly the first open-world game of its kind, the third numbered entry in Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series cemented a formula and a set of expectations that are still alive and well today in games like Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3. It was an artistic and technical leap forward for mainstream role-playing games in the summer of 2002, and, for many, a beautiful and novel experience. A vast ashen landscape teeming with psychedelic flora and fauna — equal parts Jim Henson and George Lucas, with a dash of Tolkien — here was a game that resembled no other. For the people who made it, Morrowind was the product of tough crunch, a pressure-cooker basement environment, and constant uncertainty about the company they … [Read more...] about Morrowind: An oral history