Gamasutra Member Blogs: From SpongeBob To Demon's Souls

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Member Blogs, our bloggers write about diverse topics, including emotional realism, Demon's Souls, and a day in the life of an indie developer.] Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while invitation-only Expert Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- are written by selected development professionals. We hope that our blog sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information, check out the official posting guidelines. Here are the top member blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Member Blogs - A Day in the Life of an Indie Dev (James Bowling) James Bowling of Last Level Games shows how his life has changed considerably since moving to indie game development by offering a look at his typical day. - Believability in "Realism": Why SpongeBob Out-Reals Fallout 3 (Alfred MacDonald) While today's games may have succeeded in superficial realism, they're way behind on emotional realism and can learn much from cartoons to catch up, argues Alfred MacDonald. - School of Hard Knocks Behind Demon's Souls Design (Josh Bycer) Game theorist Josh Bycer examines challenging action RPG Demon's Souls for lessons in creating unique battles that test the player on specific parts of the game design. - Gestalt Game Design (Douglas Lynn) Douglas Lynn points out that a great game is more than a collection of pieces, and analyzes how design, art, programming, writing, etc. need to blend together seamlessly to generate a magnificent whole. - Limits are the Foundation of any Good Game (Bruce Adams) Limitations are the foundation of any good game, says Bruce Adams, who shows here that iterating on those limits is what turns your good game into a great game.