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	<title>Tales from the Ebony Fortress</title>
	<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog</link>
	<description>Thoughts on computer games and their development</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 02 May 2010 22:54:29 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>Facebook</title>
		<description><![CDATA[(Reposted from my other journal, with minor edits.)
I play a lot of Football  Manager 2005. On this game I bought a lesser-known player from Norway whose position is marked as a &#8220;Defender/Forward  Left/Centre/Right&#8221;. So he seemed adaptable, but I never got good  results, no matter where I played him on the pitch, so I turned to  [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2010/05/02/facebook/</link>
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		<title>Understanding what facilitates meaningful strategy in games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Often we invent games by taking an existing game that works and adding a twist to it, or changing some aspect of its behaviour or theme to something different. But how would we create a game from nothing, without using an existing game as a framework? In particular, how do we make the game complex [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2010/03/10/understanding-what-facilitates-meaningful-strategy-in-games/</link>
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		<title>Crossover games and explaining them to the audience</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This post is long overdue, for which I apologise. I hope to resume a more regular service before the year is out!
There&#8217;s a post on Penny Arcade from a few weeks back which is complaining that a certain game Brütal Legend seems to masquerade as one type of game (ie. a Real Time Strategy game) [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2009/12/02/crossover-games-and-explaining-them-to-the-audience/</link>
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		<title>Code archaeology</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Something interesting happened today. For a couple of years, myself and colleagues had mulled over a certain &#8216;killer feature&#8217; that we wished our networking layer had, as it would have made our time implementing gameplay features much easier. Today, while doing some long awaited R+D work on said layer, I found that feature. The sheer [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2009/09/23/code-archaeology/</link>
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		<title>Pitfalls of using wikis for game design documents</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I recently made a post on this issue over at Gamedev.net, and thought I&#8217;d clean it up a bit to post over here, as I think it&#8217;s worth talking about. Designers are often looking for new and better ways both to create and present their design documents, and rightfully so. Just as programmers may try [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2009/07/26/pitfalls-of-using-wikis-for-game-design-documents/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Playing time</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Sorry for not updating recently; real-life has been a bit busier than usual and I&#8217;ve had little time to ruminate on game development of late. But then this was always going to be a sporadic endeavour rather than a regular column so have patience! I&#8217;ve plenty of posts drafted up, they just need editing and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2009/07/20/playing-time/</link>
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		<title>Dissecting a &#8217;simple&#8217; game</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Apologies in advance for the length of this entry; there&#8217;s a short summary in the last paragraph if you&#8217;re pressed for time!
A few weeks ago, in a moment of extreme boredom, I stopped to watch the snooker player Stephen Hendry score the maximum possible &#8216;break&#8217; of 147 points. (13 minute video.) Snooker is not the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2009/06/10/dissecting-a-simple-game/</link>
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		<title>Does &#8216;games as art&#8217; have to mean &#8216;games as metaphor&#8217;?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I may as well open the writing here with a fairly weighty topic! Comments welcomed.
In recent times there has been growing recognition of &#8220;games as art&#8221;, a term which is necessarily as vague as the wide scope of &#8220;games&#8221; and &#8220;art&#8221; allows, but which tends to evoke very specific images. The mainstream games industry tends [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2009/05/28/does-games-as-art-have-to-mean-games-as-metaphor/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>About this blog</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome! Within this blog I hope to cover a variety of topics related to computer games and their development, which is likely to include the following areas at a minimum:

Critical reviews of games as I play them (most old, some new), steering away from focusing on presentational aspects and more towards abstract game systems and overall [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/2009/04/04/about-this-blog/</link>
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