An Unexpected Journey

Hello. My name's Kevin Saunders and welcome to my first post. Please excuse the limited content at the moment. I wasn't really expecting you just yet. I'm generally going to be writing about topics such as: game design and development, leadership, crowdfunding, and user interface design.

If you've come across my name before, it's most likely through either my book (Game Interface Design) or Torment: Tides of Numenera (TTON). Almost three years ago, I joined inXile entertainment to design and lead the Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for TTON. Generous backers supported us for a record-breaking (for Kickstarter video games) $4.2M, an honor we held for more than two years. From that time, through last month, I was the project lead for TTON.

Torment provided some unique opportunities to explore the nature of reactivity in games and it's one of the most interesting (to me) game design topics. By "reactivity," I mean the game responding believably to player choices. There are different levels and types of reactivity possible in games and this is one of the topics to which I expect to explore in this blog.

For now, just this brief welcome. Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to contact me with questions at any time.

ksaun