Jason Rohrer is an American computer programmer, writer, musician, and game designer. He publishes most of his software under the GNU GPL or into the public domain. Rohrer is currently parenting and making video games in Davis, California. He is probably best know for Passage, burying a board game in the Nevada desert, and trouncing the competition at the GDC Game Design Challenge.
http://hcsoftware.sourcefor...
The Castle Doctrine
A massively-multiplayer game of burglary and home defense, The Castle Doctrine is Rohrer’s tenth game and may or may not have something to do with the real life experience of protecting his family from dogs. Though the game is played online with the full population of active players, interaction is asynchronous, and players never see each other directly. Each player has a house and starts with a limited budget to build security systems for their house. The goal of construction is to keep other players out through tricks, traps, and puzzles. Players can also purchase burglary tools and attempt to break through the security of other players' houses to steal money and thus further build their own defenses. Death, at any point in the game, is permanent and forces the player to restart from scratch with an empty house and limited budget.
http://thecastledoctrine.ne...
Play on: Steam
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
The newly announced game from Jason Rohrer doesn’t even have a title yet. It's an online two-player strategy game played for real money. Read the first details in Part Two of our interview here: http://n4g.com/blogs/previe...
Play on: the internet, in the future.
Mini Q&A
Why do you make games?
I make video games because they occupy a young creative realm that is still relatively wide open, with so much unexplored space. And the format itself makes the possibility space bigger too. We're not just constrained to making work out of linear sounds (recorded music) or linear sequences of words (printed writing) or linear sequences of images and sound (cinema). We have so many dimensions to play with when inventing new types of video games. This allows for a very broad spectrum, where stuff that barely seems related (like Tetris and The Last of Us) is on the same table. All cinema films have a sequence of linear images, but what do all video games have? Some, like Robin Arnott's Deap Sea, don't even have screens.
Why should people play The Castle Doctrine?
Because it will drive you screaming mad over your own human folly and make you feel things that no other game has ever made you feel.
What element of game design do you hold above all others?
Interactivity is the most important aspect to me, to the point where I try to excise all non-interactive, pre-authored content from my games. If there's a story in one of my games, it will be one that you tell yourself through interacting with the game's systems, not one that I tell you. Over time, I've realized that interactivity isn't enough by itself to be engaging. Interactivity without a point is like a film without a plot---your brain has license to drift in and out of focus without consequence. These days, my focus is on challenge, which of course requires extensive interactivity as a necessary component.
Today’s Stories:
Giveaway: The Castle Doctrine: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Jason Rohrer on The Castle Doctrine, Self-defense, and His New Project, Part One: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Jason Rohrer on The Castle Doctrine, Self-defense, and His New Project, Part Two: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
The Castle Doctrine: I Killed Your Wife: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Day 16 | Jason Rohrer
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
This is an online game?
So our house can be invaded even if we're not playing?
Took criminology, heard this term a million times now I can finally play what would happen if someone broke in my house....and it ain't gonna be pretty
holy crap this looks amazing!
Looks like it could be fun.