September 9, 2016
A design exploration.
Imagine that in 1989, Japan had developed a personal time machine: what would their branding have looked like?
July 2, 2016
In the console Skylanders games, changing which Skylander you had in the game was a simple interaction: take the existing Skylander figure off the connected Portal Of Power accessory, and then place a new one down. Instant swap.
When we were developing the Nintendo 3DS version of the first game, "Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure", we knew the Magic Moment would be more complex, since the 3DS...
June 7, 2016
A drawing from 2011, early in development of Skylanders Lost Islands, suggesting the scale of land you'd be able to develop. Color is layered highlighters (we must have been in a meeting).
June 3, 2016
When we began development on what became Skylanders SuperChargers, we knew only a few things:
- 1. new and legacy Skylanders would both be playable.
- 2. VEHICLES.
I can't overstate: we were simply directed to make Vehicles the big new feature of the 2015 Skylanders game. How we'd choose to do this, and whether "simply" would be a word we'd use again...that was up to us....
May 20, 2016
In Skylanders SuperChargers, you can collect a series of power-ups which affect vehicle gameplay. They're mostly represented by Magic Items from the first Skylanders game: the Time Twister Hourglass slows things down; Healing Elixir gives your a health boost; and so on. We added one new rare power to this lineup: the Omega, which would give you the combined effects of all the others....
May 10, 2016
After launching Skylanders Lost Islands, we entered a period called "Live Ops", where we'd add new content and promotions to the game on a weekly basis. Most of the time these additions were simple, like a new building or decoration for your Kingdom. Occasionally, we'd add a "Feature" - a new functional aspect of the game.
The Wishing Well was one of the first Features we added to the ga...
October 21, 2015
Today, a new Spanish book titled "Una genealogía de la pantalla: del cine al teléfono móvil" was published by Anagrama Editorial. It's a genealogical history of the smartphone, and how its ubiquitous screen has become an ever-present part of our lives.
I am honored that the book's author, Israel Marquez, selected an illustration of mine (called "Mr. Screenhead") to serve as the boo...
