Yu-Chung Chen

Yu-Chung Chen is a designer working primarily on video games. He studied at Köln International School of Design and has contributed to a number of published games. Currently he works as a freelance UI designer at Keen Games.

Website: http://www.ycchen.de
Harvest Mania is online!

Harvest Mania is online!

So Harvest Mania is now online, finally.

Click to visit. So far, German only. Sorry. The English version is being prepared.

This marks the first weekend (or free time in general) since 2009 that I’m not obligated to work on the game. Or am I?
You see, the game was already on the AgriTechnica two years ago, which was the original [...]

Harvest Mania Developer Diary #4

Harvest Mania Developer Diary #4

After reconsidering the score calculation, I figured that the HUD I already streamlined recently must be updated again to show the relevant data, so the player can actually work towards better performance during the level.

The final HUD?

…and I ended up with an almost complete redesign. Again.

Harvest Mania Developer Diary #3

Harvest Mania Developer Diary #3

Yeah I’m still at it. Last time I showed an updated HUD, although it was adjusted again during implementation and is about to be changed yet again. Today I’ll talk about the other manifestation of the score system: the Score Sheet.

Redesigning the Score Sheet

Harvest Mania Developer Diary #2

Harvest Mania Developer Diary #2

I’ve come up with a new HUD since last time.

The new tidiness

The most important change is the new Gas Meter on the left, which not only replaces the time limit.

Harvest Mania Developer Diary #1

Harvest Mania Developer Diary #1

In 2009 I was hired to create a game for advertising my clients products on the Agritechnica exhibition of that year. In the game, called Harvest Mania, the players harvests grain crops using a combine harvester, while benefitting from the products offered by my clients.
On the fair, it was great getting real feedback to the game — above [...]

Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition: Trial Fail

Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition: Trial Fail

So I got SSFIV:AE and I’m breaking in my Saturn USB pad by playing the Trial mode.
The Trial mode consists of a series of stages. In each of those, the player has to execute one or multiple moves. It starts with the simple execution of a special move and quickly moves on to combos of increasing [...]

Some quick thoughts on Bayonetta’s combat

(I should be writing my thesis but a man’s gotta let off steam sometimes, right?)
Bayonetta is supposed to have this perfect score combat gameplay, and it IS pretty fun, but the game doesn’t do any efforts to lead the player into the depth. I’m sure there’s audience that takes great pleasure in exploring that depth on [...]

Videogames in other media: Gaiden

Videogames in other media: Gaiden

Just rediscovered this image on my phone. I took this photo a few months ago in Taiwan. Note how Nintendo DS is used to enforce the “new stylish MOMENT”. What I’ll never get is why fashion ads in Taiwan often feature Caucasians – certainly that’s the current global beauty ideal, but the typical anatomy proportions [...]

Ninja Gaiden 2: Freedom is good, control was better

Ninja Gaiden 2: Freedom is good, control was better

I’ve prepared some thoughts on Ninja Gaiden 2 (henceforth “NG2″), which I finished just recently. For brevity’s sake, I’ll make two separate posts. This first one is on pacing and weapon distribution.

Some words before we dive in so you can better frame my perspective.
I’m a big fan of the predecessor, but had realstic expectations when getting this [...]

The Keeper of the what? The Role of the Designer: Iterative Design vs. Production Phases.

Recently Krystian, Fabricio Rosa Marques and me had a game design discussion session, intended as warm-up for our planned podcast. Unfortunately most of the recording was gone for technical reasons (good thing we did that test), and I want to bring up the main topic we talked about in that session.
The topic was The Role of [...]

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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.

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