Chrysalis Games

For the Love of the Game (And Its Players)

2011-09-25T15:08:00.001-07:00

Dear players,The other day I was watching a conversation happening on the Dark Risings ooc channel regarding the players' right to complain, and the reasons (as understood by a few players) that mud developers do what they do. It got me to thinking, and I decided this might be the most appropriate atmosphere to express my own thoughts on the matter, should anyone be interested in hearing from

Away in White, Back in Black

2011-08-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

As many faithful readers know, my coder and I stopped working on our new project for a while in order to go back to our first mud, Dark Risings, and help it get back on track. Then I took time off from that mud again to get married and spend quality time with my new husband. Here I am now, though, yearning for the soothing black screen of my beloved muds, pining for my DR fix, and most of all

Crunchy Numbers, Mmmm

2010-10-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,Since my last post, my partner and I have been busy hammering out all the million details which have to be considered when balancing races. Although that task is far from complete, this post is a bit of an update to show those of you who may be interested in such things the way we're going about it.We are taking an approach to race, class and skill gains which will have a familiar

Races for Real

2010-10-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,I've been having trouble building lately because I've been trying to work on the city I want to make into my epicentre of culture, a blend of all races and beliefs in the centre of the world. But it's proven extremely difficult for me to create a city of culture without having a strong idea of the people who make the culture. Which brings us to races which will populate the

Helpfiles/Buildport/Potions

2010-09-30T22:42:00.001-07:00

I thought you might find the current contents of my notepad interesting. I had to make a few modifications to make it show the correct spacing (hence the dots for spaces in my beloved mini-charts). Enjoy, and feel free to comment and speculate :){m================================================================================{xPotions are made using the craft of {minfusion{x. Each vnum has four

Building Character

2010-07-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

So the last few weeks have been pretty chaotic. I used to work for my dad off and on, between bouts of education: for two years after the time I spent writing about Aristotle and coversations between God and Satan; summers the next two years while I was learning and testing theories about criticism and transmission of knowledge. After that I sort of knew what I wanted to do in life and off I went

Spring Sweet Spring

2010-05-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone... welcome to spring :)After a long dark winter spring has finally arrived and new ideas are blossoming everywhere. I was prepared for this process to be a lot of work, but I radically underestimated just how much needed to be considered. Once again I'm grateful to have such an awesome game to work from, both in terms of the stock ROM 2.4 code and in the awesome storylines and

Ideas and Conversation

2009-12-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

hello everyone. i hope you're all having a fine winter.i've been thinking a lot lately about what the setting of this new mud should be. the canvas is empty. it could be anything. we could make use of the setting of DR, our first mud. we could create our own mythology and create a world which is completely new. we could move away from fantasy and create a post-apocalyptic mud or a

Response to Reader Response

2009-11-10T17:52:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone.For tonight's post I thought it might be interesting to respond to some reader comments, which have come to me in various forms. Many of these things are quite interesting to me and will probably form the basis of posts to come; consider this a sneak peek. "I admire your efforts to create your own, personal, perfect MUD [but] fear it may not attract many players if you stick

Perfection and Plato

2009-11-03T16:26:00.000-08:00

hello everyone.sorry for the long delay between this post and the last; i will admit i have gotten sucked into Oblivion and have been busy punching goblins and fencing all my ill-gotten goods. bethesda is a very fine gaming studio. <3i did do some writing, but mostly over on TMC. i had posted a link there as an invitation to here, thinking people there might be interested in things here, and

Imaginary Magic

2009-10-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

to dg cuz i ruined his dayandanyone who had to walk home in the pouring rain<3today i was thinking about guilds and imms, game theory, level caps and the endless question of how to make players interested in playing their characters for a long period of time. what makes a game interesting to play for more than ten years?in game theory terms, a mud, specifically the mud i own, dark risings, isa

Rain and Witches

2009-10-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

hello everyone. welcome back.this post is supposed to be my thoughts about how dr fits into game theory. i have been working on that idea, and writing about that idea, and learning about game theory (or at least, wikipedia game theory, which i recognize for what it is. game theory. on wikipedia. i get it.).(note: i came back and added the aside below as i was editing this post before

Consider This Your Invitation

2009-10-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

dear people who are interested in thinking seriously about gaming, in writing about gaming, in writing period, in reading the writing of a mad blonde game designer,--i don't where you all are out there. but i am writing to you, and would love further correspondence.dear people who are interested in the specific game of dr,--this blog is not primarily about dr. it is about gaming, but will