Overview: I postponed buying a VR headset for as long as I could, but BeatSaber was the game that made me cave. I created this custom beat map to go along with one of my favorite high-energy songs. It was also my first design project in VR.

           Overview: In the latest two expansions, Hearthstone cards are becoming more and more notorious for their random card generation in large part due to the Discover mechanic. In this post I will touch on two specific examples of card generation chains played in Arena and then talk about random card generation from a balance perspective.

          Overview: Last week, I was fortunate enough to draft three 12-win Arena Decks in Hearthstone. Since this is a stellar performance for anyone including myself, I figured I would do my best to break down each draft and point out the strengths and weaknesses of each deck in hindsight. Each draft was with a different class which lends itself to the flexibility of the metagame post-Un'Goro. This sort of analytical exercise is an excellent tool for improving your own gameplay and drafting strategy. 

         Overview: Having played the Journey to Un'Goro expansion for going on two months now, I am just starting to appreciate the flexibility that the new Adapt mechanic offers to players (and designers!). In this post I will showcase the design potential of Adapt and explain why it is the cornerstone of Un'Goro and why I hope to see it make an appearance in future expansions.

          Overview: Forbidden Desert is one of my favorite co-op board games. I love the theme, the dynamic board state, and especially the sense of urgency created by the ever-increasing piles of sand. However, I was growing bored playing the same old roles over and over again. So I decided to make (and play with!) my own. This post will detail the creation and playtesting of the custom roles. At the end of the project I want to print actual cards to add to the box and then do a post-mortem blog to bring it all together.

         Overview: This will be the first of many blog posts about new keywords that Hearthstone is missing. While there is no immediate issue with the lack of meaningful keywords, expanding the list of in-game keywords can open up future design space. Keywords are an ideal way to improve brevity and readability of card text. Concise card text allows for more complex interactions by decreasing the amount of text required to explain the game's mechanics. 

Overview: Balancing a game is never an easy task. Devising a formula is one surefire way to create equal balance among every game element. I am going to reverse engineer the way each card (from Hearthstone) in the sample below was most likely balanced, then use that information to generate a new random card of equal power.     

          Overview: Putting yourself in the player’s shoes is one of the easiest ways to make sure the overall experience of your game is fun. While playtesting, certain aspects of your game may stick out like a sore thumb that went unnoticed in the initial design. As an example, I will analyze the most flawed design decision in Blizzard’s new turn-based card game, Hearthstone.         

Overview: My last blog discussed a methodical approach to perfectly balancing numerical values in a game, thus making the experience more mentally engaging for the player. Now I'm going to switch gears and talk about “perfect imbalance” and how it can keep any multiplayer gameplay from getting stale and repetitive.

       Overview: Balancing games is never easy. This specific strategy aims to make quick iterations to accurately find balanced numerical values. Ensuring balanced numbers means a fair game and more fun for the player base as well. Examples are taken from Hearthstone and Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design.

       Overview: Not long ago, a glitch was discovered in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 that allowed players to perform combos that lasted indefinitely. Using this glitch was frowned upon by the majority of the fighting game community, yet it has not been patched and it is allowed in tournament play. I'll break down the glitch and explain why some players consider it to be balanced.

        Overview: A brief discussion of the four dedicated jungle items for Season 4 as of patch 3.15. I will break down the Conservation passive, which can be found on all three “spirit” jungle items, and compare it to the gold generating Wriggle’s Lantern passive. Lastly, I recreate the Wriggle's Lantern recipe to increase its popularity in competitive play.

       Overview: In depth look at tutorial challenges to teach beginner League of Legends players the basic game mechanics. These challenges have varying levels of difficulty and reward the player for completing them. The goal of these tutorials is to raise the overall skill level of the community and decrease the learning curve, which is getting steeper with each champion release.

       Overview: An original champion for League of Legends, named "Eugene: the Greedy Prospector". Included in the post are Eugene's base stats, scaling values, ability descriptions, and skin ideas. This new champion exceeds at supporting and winning games by increasing his team's global gold.

       Overview: I design a new defensive item for League of Legends named "Shepard's Staff." This item fills the niche of anti-mage items that also act as disablers. I analyze the gold effeciency of this item in different scenarios and suggest champions that Shepard's Staff would most greatly affect.