Rolston

4 pillars of Ken ROLSTON

>> 2

>> game design

Exploration / Combat / Advancement / Narrative

''Exploration and Advancement were defined as "the candy," and probably closest to French game theorist Caillois' concept of Alea (with a bit of mimicry as well). Randomly generated loot, beautiful vistas or hidden caves, all of this was the carrot dangling before the player, motivating them to continue.''

''This was the "signal-to-noise" or input-output ratio; i.e. the better the combat, the more gratifying the moment-to-moment game-play, and therefore experience for the player. Because Ken was not happy with the combat of his previous games, he focused a lot of critical attention to this pillar.''

''Narrative was surprisingly the most contentious. Let me preface the argument by saying that Ken is a man of words. Not only will he happily engage in any and all conversation (he frequently does), but he is also as learned a scholar as you will find in our industry, a former English teacher, and a patron of theatre.''

''All of that is to say, Ken hates dialogue, all dialogue, all of the time; the less the dialogue, the better. If he could, he would do away with dialogue completely.''

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