by Design1 | Dec 30, 2014 | Game Development, TSI games
Since we last gave an update, we’ve made design changes to our art style and achieved some terrific progress. Paul Murray is our team’s Systems Designer, focused on the algorithms to make the world balanced and tactical combat challenging. He was the first engineer at SSI in the early 80s and stayed with that company well into the 90s finishing up with the extremely successful Panzer General series. We asked Paul to comment on some recent games, to help give our fans some insight in what he seeks out in play and, by extension, what items he will emphasize in Seven Dragon Saga. His first review is a two-parter on Dragon Age: Inquisition. Paul has already spent numerous hours on the first two games of the series. Here is part 1. Reflections on DAI on the PC Since all reviews are done with a bias, I will tell you a little about the kind of gaming I like. First of all I am not a dextrous player… I am not great at timing defenses and I like a game that provides me a challenge without making me go to extensive effort. Assuming I can trust the AI, I like to run mostly from my character’s perspective, with occasional pauses to give special orders to companions… I have never found an AI that I can really trust. Secondly, I play games that I like to death (and beyond). I am an incurable character tinkerer and will play the first quarter of a game about eight times as much as the rest of a game, trying out this character’s skill combinations...
by TSI Games | Aug 16, 2014 | Game Development, TSI, TSI games
People will ask “why aren’t you (re-)making (insert favorite here)”, instead of Seven Dragon Saga? The short answer is that it isn’t entirely up to us. We are, however, incredibly excited about the new endeavor we’ve chosen. Once our core team decided to embark on this venture, the very next question was: “what should we do for our first project?” We knew initially that we wanted to do a fantasy RPG but, we also needed to take a hard look at how the landscape has changed and what our development roadmap would look like. Fortunately, we had an immediate opportunity to work with a robust rule system and game world. The Seven Dragon Saga is the brainchild of David Shelley and Keith Brors (also an SSI alumni and veteran engineer). Both have been part of a weekly tabletop role-playing since before SSI formed. Being engineers and designers, David and Keith have created and refined their own system over the years. Licensing the game to TSI and getting to work on the computer game itself became a tremendous opportunity. TSI gained a developed system to work from, access to its creators, and the creative freedom to make the ideal game. Opportunities to work with (insert favorite game/RPG system) are a definite possibility for the future....
