A Quick Primer on Middle School Gaming

Matthew J. Finch’s A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming has been around a while, and, in certain Dungeons & Dragons circles, is held as a sort of Leviticus on how the game is supposed to be played. I, however, did not start gaming in 1974.1 I’ve gamed in a lot of different circles, and Read More …

Ren Faires, Justin Bieber BDSM, and Christian singles

Fantasy Heartbreaker is now accumulating spam at about the same rate as actual comments. I’m amused by some of the subjects. Ren Faire garb This is kind of funny, because one of my favorite genres of fantasy gaming is what I call “ren faire fantasy.” The main characteristics of ren faire fantasy are a large, Read More …

The Levels of Zelda

I think I’ve mentioned before that I consider the original The Legend of Zelda an almost perfect example of a game design. The game flows beautifully, challenges the player, and provides lots of rewards for exploration. It’s also one of the finest dungeon crawlers of all time, despite a surprisingly small number of clones to Read More …