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Raph Koster

Raph Koster

Game designer, author, speaker

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Raph Koster
Raph Koster
Game designer, author, speaker
  • The game without treadmills

    Hours April 23, 2007 Categories Game talk
    Comments 74 Comments

    for (iLevel = 1; iLevel iMaxLevelAllowed; iLevel++)
    {
    currentMonsters.hitPoints = X * iLevel;
    currentMonsters.attackStrength = Y * iLevel;
    currentMonsters.graphics = GetMonsterGraphics(iLevel);

    currentTreasures.value = Z * iLevel;
    }

    The above came from a Slashdot thread about LOTRO, and was pointed out to me by John Szeder, who followed up with the question, “Why haven’t more people looked at making games without treadmills?”

    Read More “The game without treadmills”

    Read More The game without treadmillsContinue

  • A video review of AToF

    Hours April 23, 2007 Categories Misc
    Comments 6 Comments

    This is a first for me! GameJew (a frequently hilarious gaming culture video web show — the intro should give you a good idea of what it’s like) has done a video review of the book. Extreme close-ups of cartoons for the win!

    Read More A video review of AToFContinue

  • The Sunday Song: Pick ‘Em All Up

    Hours April 22, 2007November 26, 2007 Categories Music
    Comments 2 Comments

    My home office has had some misadventures lately: first replacing some faucets in the adjacent bathroom, then there was an unrelated flood which required moving everything out into the living room, then I found that the tile dust from the faucet replacement had almost killed my CPU fan, causing my computer to overheat and crash quite regularly (thanks to m3mnoch for helping me get running again!).

    So today I got the recording stuff all set up again for the first time in ages. And this tune was the result. The recording is a bit muddy, and a bit messy — I didn’t actually write parts for anything other than the mandolin, so everything else is just improv and more than a bit rough, since some of the parts stomp each other or collide. But what the hey, it’s dinnertime and I have been working on it for around 6 hours, so I am posting it.

    http://www.raphkoster.com/music/pickemallup.mp3

    Given that I overdubbed virtually every instrument I have, Kristen said it should be called “Pick ‘Em All Up.” So it is. However, the ukelele and the mountain dulcimer did not in fact make the cut. But you can hear the old 1894 banjo in there — my banjo debut! — as well as the ’62 Gibson acoustic.

    Read More The Sunday Song: Pick ‘Em All UpContinue

  • Web 2.0 Expo: Audio of the panel

    Hours April 20, 2007 Categories Game talk
    Comments 3 Comments

    The Agile Partners weblog has audio of the panel I was on. They also have better audio of the lecture I gave.

    Read More Web 2.0 Expo: Audio of the panelContinue

  • Web 2.0 Expo: panel notes

    Hours April 19, 2007 Categories Game talk
    Comments 4 Comments

    Obsolete_Your_Idols has a rough transcript of the panel I was on alongside folks from Club Penguin, Gaia Online, and Second Life.

    Read More Web 2.0 Expo: panel notesContinue

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  • Blog
    • Blog Home
    • Recommended posts 1998-2012
    • Recommended posts 2012-2017
    • Recommended posts, 2017-2025
  • Game Design
    • Game Design Home
    • A Theory of Fun site
    • Presentations
    • Essays
    • Interviews and panels
    • Snippets
    • Laws of Online World Design
    • The Online World Timeline
    • MMO History Links
  • Books
    • All the Books
    • Postmortems
    • Theory of Fun
    • Sunday Poems
    • Other writing
      • Fiction
      • Poetry
      • Lit Crit
  • Music
    • My Music
    • After the Flood
      • Amazon
      • iTunes
      • Spotify
    • Listen
    • Instruments and tunings
  • Art
    • Art Home
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    • Pen and Ink
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  • About Raph
    • About Me
    • CV
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      • Emulation
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