Yu-Chung Chen

Yu-Chung Chen was born in Taiwan, studies at Köln International School of Design, and has been working professionally in the games industry in Germany since 2001. Shipped titles he had worked on include: Legend of Kay, Meine Tierklinik, Anno 1701/ Anno DS, DDR - Disney Channel Edition and others.

Website: http://www.ycchen.de

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 [...]

Street Fighter IV pad, disassembled

My SF 4 pad’s d-pad didn’t feel right: after a short while of going right, the character would continue going right for a fraction of a second. And to input left, I often have to consciously press left all the way, there was a confusing/irritating wiggle room.
So, I did what any curious gamer would do: disassemble [...]

Game music wanted + Cologne Commons

Since March I’ve been working on an advergame for a major manufacturer for agriculture machines. Not directly though, I’m working as a freelance designer for a German company which cooperates with the big, international player. That’s also the reason why I can’t talk about design issues and post wip stuff here (which sucks).
Only recently I’ve started [...]

Xbox360 demo impressions

Continuation of my Xbox360 impressions. Here I comment on demos of full-price titles, in no particular order.
I’m pretty unprepared for “today’s core games” because I tended to ignore anything “next gen” (how do you properly and concisely address Xbox360 and PS3 ONLY, without the Wii I mean?) when I lacked the hardware to play.

Xbox360 GET

So I finally got an Xbox360, Krystian tease me enough after all. Thanks dude My first thoughts:
PurchaseI got the console from a German electronic chain although Amazon had it cheaper, because I wanted to make sure the console would be a Jasper. To do so I needed to see the voltage rating the production date. [...]

My desk

Nothing spectacular. I wanted to answer a friend’s blogpost but realized the need for an image, so here goes my minor Ikea hack.

SF IV costumes and spoiler-phobia

I’m a subscriber to this blog called Costume GET!, which “discusses the finer points of videogame character costumes.”
The latest hint on Street Fighter IV’s alternate costumes is enticing, but at the same time, I’m afraid to look at them as it would take away much fun of getting a fresh look – or is it just me?
Can anybody tell [...]

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.

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