RJ Layton

Peanut Gallery is really proud to announce that Minor Battle, Andre Clark's thesis project, has won two big awards at Indiecade 2009 -- the Audience Choice Award and the Finalist Choice Award! These awards were selected by the audience and other Indiecade finalists by secret ballot, so winning these awards means a lot for Peanut Gallery... we're overwhelmed by the recognition from our peers in the independent games community and feel great about the positive reaction from people playing the game in Culver City.

In case you missed Jamie's earlier post about it or don't know us already, Peanut Gallery is a new independent studio founded by myself, Andre, Jamie, and John, all four of us graduates from the IMD MFA program in 2009. Come check us out at our new website: peanutgallerygames.com.

In light of the increasingly difficult-to-follow nature of the Interactive Media Blog, I wanted to call special attention to some of the best posts of September that I think may have been lost in the shuffle.

Continue reading "Choice Cuts: September" »

Today is NPD day, one of my favorite days, because it allows me a chance to review the state of the industry and see where it is going. As somebody with a degree in Business (from USC!), I derive quite a bit of enjoyment out of doing market and industry analysis and making predictions about where the market will go next.

Continue reading "Wii have spoken, but are developers listening?" »

Yes, it appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds. I'm going to talk about why we should stop talking about girls in gaming, or at least why I'm tired of it.

Continue reading "Let's Stop Talking About Girls in Gaming" »

Following is my planned schedule for the remainder of the semester.

Continue reading "CTIN548: Planned Schedule" »

This is Part 3 of a series of posts dedicated to covering topics of interest to me in videogames, and will be instrumental in the foundation of my thesis project. As always, comments are appreciated.

Part 3 covers some economic concepts, mostly focusing on rarity of commodities and items and how they impact the narrative of a massively-multiplayer online game.

Continue reading "Thesis Philosophy Series Pt. 3" »

Some fun photos from the one week project!

Continue reading "One Week Project Fun" »

Last week at GDC 2008, I was able to sit in on the Game Designer's Rant. Much of the theme related to what is quickly turning into a dead-horse topic: "Making games with more mature/adult content."

Many of these designers imply that it's somehow a big change from what has been going on all along. I disagree. I think designers are arguing a silly point and that they want to keep doing the same thing they've been doing all along, which is making games for themselves.

Continue reading "GDC 2008: Adult Games vs. Games for Adults" »

This is Part 2 of a series of posts dedicated to covering topics of interest to me in videogames, and will be instrumental in the foundation of my thesis project. As always, comments are appreciated.

In this post, I'll be covering massively-multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs or simply MMOs). More specifically, I'll be looking at the immensely popular World of Warcraft and the less popular and arguably more "hardcore" EVE Online.

(now crossposted at Peggy's request)

Continue reading "Thesis Philosophy Series Pt. 2" »

This is the Part 1 of a series of posts I will be making, called my "Thesis Philosophy Series." In these posts I will be covering various aspects of game design and philosophy in efforts to define my upcoming thesis project. Comments are not only welcome but encouraged!

(now crossposted at Peggy's request)

Continue reading "Thesis Philosophy Series Pt. 1" »