Gamasutra's expert bloggers discuss Canabalt, leveling systems

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Expert Blogs, industry notables write about diverse topics, including lessons learned from localizing Canabalt, six words about stories in games, ruminations on leveling, and more.] In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information about the blogs, check out the latest official posting guidelines. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs Lessons learned from localizing Canabalt (Adam Saltsman) At the end of 2011, Semi Secret finally released an update to our popular game Canabalt that had support for something like 15 languages. If only for the sake of our own unreliable memories, Adam Saltsman wanted to record some of the things his team learned during that process. Ruminations on Leveling (Evan Jones) The classic system of leveling up through experience points is one of the most common systems in games today. Evan Jones asks, "But what's it really good for?" Six words about stories in games (Lewis Pulsipher) A recent trending topics on Twitter was six-word stories. Lewis Pulsipher has previously asked people to say six words about game design, programming, wargames, and casual games. This time he's put out a call for six words about stories in games An Origin Story: How I Got My Groove Back (Benjamin Quintero) Benjamin Quintero offers a LONG look back at 2011, and how a $1 game became a universe that is imperfect and filled with strife. And how that journey was the release he needed to let go (for now) and enjoy being indie.