1. Kids only know fun and not fun.
Make games interesting. Casual games should never take over a minute to mechanic. Ie play. Controls should be intuitive and have a purpose. Never add a control just because you can. Use colours that are lively and balance with the emotion you trying to portray.

2. UI / UX simplicity is the hardest thing to master.
Laying out the proper using interfaces should allow everything needed to be displayed, but not inhibiting the user to access it. Metro in WP7 / Windows8 is a great example of nice UI / UX design.
Allow for different tap and gesture abilities i.e. soft / hard taps, fast and slow swipes.
3. Implemental Challenge
This may be the toughest. Making a game challenging is easy. If the challenge isn’t balanced correctly, the player will find it to easy and lose interest or possibly, it’s too hard, again losing interest.
4. Audio
Your audio should tell a story. If your audio is narrative, you can teach the player and give them hints in game. You add higher pitches as points were you want to the player to jump low points when you want them to crouch or go down. Use audio to get the player into the mood you trying to create.

Final thoughts, this is by no means a final list. Just some thoughts that I wanted to share. Hopefully, I’ll hear your comments both good and bad.

Here we go again, another Game Prototype Challenge and an oppurtunity to create another game. This time, I’m taking things differently. Creating a high concept is essential in games and more so in game jams. Reason being is your time is limited. Finding out early if your idea is “Good” or should be continued, is something you’re going to want to do BEFORE you start developing ANYTHING. It’s most likey, when you’re set on a idea, you’re not going to want to change your mind idea mid way. You’ll never finish your game. Trust me i know this guy. OK, enough talk, what is a high concept. Simply put, it’s a rough idea, no longer than a paragraph of what your game is about. Main character, antogonist if any, setting and game mechanics. You’re really looking to build the foundation on which your game will be developed around. This challenge is based around two themes. MOMENTUM and FLOURISH. More to come. Get Involved check out the GPC today http://news.gameprototypechallenge.com/

After searching the net. I came by this post on channel nine it’s a bit old but still insightful. It’s an interview with Corrinne Yu – Principal Engine Architect, Halo Team Microsoft. Enjoy!!!

Hello faithful, the team at purely educational is proud to announce that triEngine core has gone open source. This is not our full engine, but a basic framework for other to build from. The reason for releasing this to the public, is in the hopes that others would use it as a learning tool. Engine Source Download

Sounds kinda crazy creating a game in 48 hours. Here’s what I have so far. Time to work in the graphics

Seeing that I wasn’t able to attend the physical location for Global Game Jam 2011. I thought that I should at least still add an entry. This years theme was extinction, pondering the thought and only having 48 hours to develop this game, I thought the revenge of the Dodo bird would be a good subject. I’ll be using a tower defense game mechanic were you have a wave of European  boats trying to reach the island of Mauritius. Your job is to stop them and you only have one chance. Will post the early game play shortly.

I think  I have been lucky in my career, to see a few paradigm shifts when it comes to languages used to design video games. First, came the thought that all games must be designed in Assembly, then came C, then came C++. Now, I think the next shift will be managed languages namely C#. I’m very impressed with Windows Mobile 7 and the XNA framework and it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing ads for C# programmers in game development. Don’t forget to keep your C++ sword sharp.

Hello faithful, Purely Educational is again adding new features to the engine and as promised will continue to show updates as there completed. This implementation shows a simple behavior demo. Stay tuned for further updates.

Hello Faithful, Purely Educational has been busy at work developing a full featured game engine in house. I have been asked why would you develop a game engine when there is so many to choose from. Well to put it lightly, there’s nothing like creating a Game Engine from scratch it’s a lost art. Here’s a quick look at what were up too. Just shows a simple directional shader (e.i the hello world for engine programmers) at the moment will continually update status here. Engine architecture using Direct X / FMOD / WinSock32 / Bullet / Box2D / HLSL .Stay Tooned.