Ryan Shields

Previously on “How Games Are Made”, I defined the role of a producer and offered some creative choices producers generally make in the course of the production phase of game development. However, sometimes a producer’s choices don’t go over well…

For those nostalgic for the days when racing games evolved beyond tires and asphalt and took to the futuristic, dystopian skies, I introduce RedOut: Lightspeed Edition. Production company 505 Games has recently announced that this exclusive edition of RedOut will…

If I’m not mistaken, many of us remember things fondly. That particular place, this particular song, that particular person-whatever the thing, it triggers a memory laden with a thin, fading gold. In remembering we fondly mourn the flakes of olden…

Recently, in my downtime, I’ve recognized that many contemporary video game icons confirm a truism about reiteration. And this is the truism. Few things are original, in the sense of never being done before; many things are original, in the…

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start. Gamers among us perhaps know that series of inputs as the Konami Code. The Konami Code is, arguably, the most popular cheat code in gaming history, giving the player…

Some time ago, I began a series on how games are made. Apologies for the recent detour on stories and storytelling; I find the topic fascinating, and I think it’s a topic often overlooked in recent years, with open world…

Lately I’ve been writing pieces on the nature of storytelling. This should be the last piece in the mini-series, for I am running out of ideas and readers are perhaps charging me with beating a dead horse. So, I figure…

What do Breath of the Wild, the latest Ghost Recon, and Kingdom Hearts 0.2 have in common? They have open worlds. Open world games give players freedom to explore, to play, to make their own adventure. In recent times open…