RPG News
Larian Studios opens new studio in Poland (Game Developer)
Larian Studios has opened a new studio in Poland to facilitate their next two role-playing game projects. While they are not planning on an update, expansion, or sequel to Baldur’s Gate III, they are ramping up two large-scale RPG projects.
Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian opens studio in Poland (gamedeveloper.com)
Ultima & World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game excerpt and link (Game Developer)
Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Thomas Payne has released a scholarly book which explores the Ultima series of computer role-playing games and their lasting impact on the RPG genre and the video game industry.
Book Excerpt: Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game (gamedeveloper.com)
FULL BOOK: Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game (fulcrum.org)
Language, Loot, and Localization: How to Ready MMORPGs for Release in More Regions
Sarah Müller, the head of localization at Gameforge, relates a number of ways MMORPG developers can plan and prepare their games for localization and movement into new regions.
Diablo IV Players Can’t Believe How Much Better the Game is Now (Kotaku)
With the release of Diablo’ IV’s Loot Reborn season, players have been having an extremely good time with the game.
Diablo 4 Players Can’t Believe How Much Better It Is Now (kotaku.com)
Tabletop Game Designers Association offers protection and education for game designers (Rascal.news)
Rowan Zeoli breaks down the benefit of the Tabletop Game Designers Association.
Weekly Discoveries
The weekly discoveries may or may not be directly related to RPGs or role-playing game development, but will usually at least be RPG-adjacent. They’re mostly a list of some of the cool things I found this week that would be beneficial to RPG developers.
Did Video Game Investment Hit Rock Bottom, and is it Ready to Go Back Up? (Reboot Develop Blue Panel, (GamesIndustry.biz)
On the Reboot Develop 2024 stage, Jonas Antonsson (CEO at Raw Fury), Anders Leicht Rohde (CCO of Funday Games), Jussi Tähtinen (CEO at Nitro Games) and Antonio Pašalić (Program Director at WN Media Group). The moderator was Shum Singh (Managing Director at Agnitio Capital) took the stage to panel a discussion about the current status of the game industry.
Did video game investment hit rock bottom, and is it ready to go back up? | GamesIndustry.biz
Pillars of Tactical RPG Design (RPGnet Forums)
It’s an old post with comments, but it is filled with some very cool insight into tactical RPG problems.
Pillars of Tactical RPG Design | Tabletop Roleplaying Game Design | RPGnet Forums
Amp Up Your Game Design: Crafting Strategy RPGs (Black Shell Media)
Black Shell Media released this in 2015, but I recently discovered it when researching tactical and strategy role-playing games. It breaks down some of the differences between pure strategy titles and role-playing strategy titles to provide design guidance.
Amp Up Your Game Design: Crafting Strategy RPGs – Black Shell Media
(also)
Amp Up Your Game Design: Progression Mechanics – Black Shell Media
Tactics Games in 2020: Game Design Notes about Horizon’s Gate and Gears Tactics (Radiator Design Blog)
Robert Yang looks at two particular tactics games, Horizon’s Gate and Gears Tactics, and evaluates their systems, gameplay, and combat design.
Three Pillars of Combat Design: Final Fantasy Tactics (Design Oriented Blog)
Kirbykid looks at the combat design behind Final Fantasy Tactics.
Three Pillars of Combat Design: Final Fantasy Tactics – Design Oriented Blog
Unity eBook for Level Design (Unity)
I’m not sure how I missed this in 2023, but I did. Unity released a pretty solid level design eBook. If you are using Unity and have even more than a passing interest in level design, I’d recommend picking it up. Sure some of the features have changed with the latest build of Unity, but the majority of the content on level design is just as solid today as it was when it was written.
Featured Game
The featured game this week is Challenge of the Five Realms: Spellbound in the World of Nhagardia from 1992. A prince must travel across the lands to gain five different crowns to push back the creeping darkness invading the world. Think Neverending Story, but with an engine similar to Ultima VI. Most of the crowns made sense in the way the player would obtain them, but there was one…which the player had to remove from the inventory of a character that joined them before they left…which was game-breaking.