Upcoming Articles
I don't really have time to write full articles. I like an article to be well thought-out, researched, and solid enough to last years. I just shipped Puzzle Fighter HD, I'm working very hard on Street Fighter HD, as well as Kongregate.com's virtual card game, and my own physical card game called Yomi. Plus, I just competed in and helped run several Evolution Fighting Game Series events. So when am I supposed to write anything?
Well, surprise. I wrote this month's feature game design article in Game Developer Magazine. It's about save game systems and mentions the systems in 12 different games. Today I also reprinted my article about patents in the game industry. The article originally appeared on gamasutra.com.
I also wrote not just one, but three articles about how to write. Many people have asked me for writing tips, so here you go. I also wrote another article about the process of thinking logically. These four articles took me four months to complete because of the research, planning, and quoting involved. Look for them in the coming weeks. The titles are:
- Writing Well, Part 1: Sensibilities
- Writing Well, Part 2: Clear Thinking, Clear Writing
- Writing Well, Part 3: Origins of a Writer
- Thinking With Doubt: Emptying Your Cup
I'm already cringing at reading the comments that will appear after these articles. I know that you think Writing Well, Part 2 makes the point too strongly. I know that you're scandalized by Part 3. I know that various closed-minded people will ironically accuse me of being close-minded in the article about thinking, even though the article outlines the most open-minded thought process possible. I'm considering disabling comments on my site because I can see into the future, and I already read them.
After all those are out of the way, I'll post yet another article about the design of Kongregate.com's virtual card game. I even have several more articles in the works, but I can't really talk about those yet, you'll have to be satisfied with these 7, which together are about 40% as long as my book!
--Sirlin
September 10th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Looking forward to it, since I often have problems writing introductions, conclusions, and transitions. Are you going to mention the problem of writers assuming too much familiarity with the subject matter on the part of the reader? I always thought you did a great job avoiding that pitfall in your writing with things like explaining who a lot of the Evolution competitors are before taking about your matches and outlining how Puzzle Fighter is played and what the diamond trick is before listing the balance changes.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Oooo, meta article on writing.
And you shouldn’t worry about people hating your stuff. I mean, you already covered that in the Playing To Win articles you wrote, right after the “scrub” article.
September 11th, 2007 at 1:16 am
You’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring stupid comments so far. Why change now?
September 11th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Woah… that’s a lot. And we all thought you were dead by now D=
September 11th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Those stupid close-minded people! It’s not even possible to be more open-minded than what I’ve outlined! No more comments for you!
September 11th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
See what I mean…
September 11th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Aww =<
*huggles Sirly*
September 11th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I look forward to reading your forthcoming articles.
September 11th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Wow, you’re back in the saddle! This is great news. I’ll especially look forward to the ones about writing since it’s such a useful topic. The number of essays or emails I’ve written far exceeds the number of video games I’ve designed.
PS Don’t disable comments.
PPS Does Kongregate have technical capacity for competitive multiplayer (over the net) flash games? If not, why not and can you get someone on that asap; if so, can you link to some developer documentation?
September 12th, 2007 at 1:38 am
I don’t suppose you’re going to eventually get that save game article posted on this site? I love your articles but I don’t have access to GDM.
Welcome back and I’ll be glad to see the forthcoming articles.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:28 am
ricefrog: good point that you write more e-mails and essays than you design games.
x1372: yes, my article on save game systems will appear here too, but I have to wait about a month before posting it.
September 12th, 2007 at 11:12 am
::cough::
I’d definitely prefer to see game-based articles.
September 12th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I have a penchant for assertive, organised, compelling discourse, and I must say I find your PTW an example of it.
Eagerly looking to this set. I do have a problem communication - both oral and written. I find it difficult to organize my ideas in an effective way, and even my posts in gaming forums often read like a 3rd grader’s draft.
ps. it took 10 min. for me to write this post :(
September 29th, 2007 at 3:13 am
Hey Sirlin,
Could we see the articles not posted on your site somehow? I’d like to read your article about game saving, especially, but I’m not all that interested in a suscription to GDM just so I can read it.
September 29th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Jonzor: I’ll post the save game article here in a couple weeks.
October 5th, 2007 at 3:12 am
Thanks!
October 10th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Sirlin,
Is there any way you could make your PtW book available in a format more readily accessible to offline viewing? I tried saving each of the article pages as .html files, but it’s kind of clumsy that way and printing is a mess.
Thanks