Krystian Majewski

Krystian Majewski was born in Warsaw and studied design at Köln International School of Design. Before, he was working on a mid-size console project for NEON Studios in Frankfurt. He helped establish a Master course in Game Design and Research at the Cologne Game Lab. Today he teaches Game Design at various institutions and develops independent games.

Website: http://www.krystian.de
TRAUMA iOS Released!

TRAUMA iOS Released!

I am proud to announce that my game TRAUMA has been just released on the App Store. It is available here for $2.99. It is a universal App so it plays on both, the iPad and the iPhone.
Get TRAUMA iOS here
It has been a surprisingly long way to get here. Almost immediately after the initial release [...]

Miasmata Impressions

Miasmata Impressions

The games industry has a sickness. It’s an acute lack of innovation. We don’t have a cure yet. But here is a mixture that may provide temporary relief: mix equal parts Far Cry 2, Amnesia and Myst. You get Miasmata.

Far Cry 2 Parts
Just like Far Cry 2, Miasmata is a first-person open-world game. You are free to [...]

New Super Mario Bros. U Impressions

New Super Mario Bros. U Impressions

New Super Mario Bros. U is a game easy to be cynical about. It represents much of what is wrong with Nintendo today – a company relying heavily on the same, decade old brands. The New Super Mario Bros. series being a particular offender – delivering Mario branded products by re-packaging 30 years old gameplay on a low budget.

But hey, [...]

Hyrule Historia

Hyrule Historia

Here is an interesting game thing to get. Nintendo recently released a book called Hyrule Historia in the west.

Around 250 pages. A4 Format. Full-color. Hard-bound with golden print on the cover.

The books is somewhat unusual. On first sight one could call it an artbook for the Zelda series. The main bulk of the content does focus on [...]

Backlog Update 9

It’s time for another Backlog Update. I completed another set of 5 games some time ago.

Rayman Origins Finished this quite some time ago. I wrote a little about sexism in that game and possible ways to have avoided it. But generally, I liked it a lot. I was also pleased to see that my GF played [...]

How They Broke Prometheus

How They Broke Prometheus

I got the Prometheus Blu-Ray on Christmas. It was the über-mega-special edition with a ton of special features. Perhaps not quite as much as Red Letter Media suggested but I ended up spending an entire day watching it.

There is some very cool material on there. I was especially surprised by the edited scenes. There was a [...]

Wii U-Turn Around The World

Wii U-Turn Around The World

I’m really enjoying the Wii U these days. I got one at launch but I wasn’t able to play it until just recently. Because the first thing I did once I got it was to break it.

Before you brick, you see the ring.

But let’s start at the beginning. As you may know, I host a podcast show [...]

Operation Rainfall Coins

Operation Rainfall Coins

Here is something weird that Nintendo of Europe did recently. They gave me coins.

SWAG!

You may not be familiar with Operation Rainfall. It was basically a fan campaign to convince Nintendo of America to localize and publish 3 specific Japanese Wii games: Xenoblade Chronicles, Last Story and Pandora’s Tower. It started out with Xenbolade Chronicles being announced [...]

Global Game Jam 2013

I recently participated in the Global Game Jam 2013. It was fun. Here is an impression video.

Because I haven’t been involved in the management and presentation of this year’s jam, I was able to actually work on a game in a team for the first time. It was an exciting 48 hours. I was working with [...]

Overestimating Special Effects

Overestimating Special Effects

Here is an interesting video that made me think recently:

It’s a video by an older fellow clearly comfortable in the discipline of moviemaking. In fact the actual video radiates experience with the medium. He brings up a surprising point on why the moon landings in the late 60ies couldn’t have been faked – as some people believe. Apparently, [...]

About

Game Design Reviews is a Blog used by a group of game designers from Germany to publish and discuss their thoughts on various games. The blog consists entirely of reviews of games. Each review focuses on the important game design ideas and concepts of that particular game. We also run a second, more informal Blog called Game Design Scrapbook.

Twitter

follow Krystian on Twitter
follow Yu-Chung on Twitter
follow Daniel on Twitter