Designed: Emerald Night Gearbox

The Emerald Night™ is a LEGO™ steam locomotive, based off of the Flying Scotsman, a famous British Locomotive. The Emerald Night is a 4-6-2 wheel class with an eight-wheel tender. 

The Emerald Night LEGO™ Set

The Flying Scotsman Locomotive

The set includes a way to power it by attaching a Lego Power Functions (PF) Motor to the firebox, the motor being concealed within the Locomotive's cab. This motor, while running, would turn an axle which runs the gearbox and power the drive wheels. The design of the gearbox keeps it hidden behind the set's details, and also speeds up the normally slow rotation of the PF Motor. The wheels that are powered by the motor are only the two back drive wheels, out of the six of them.

The gearbox of the Emerald Night.
The bright yellow gear that's sticking out rotates a smaller
gear, speeding up the rotation of the axles.

The simplicity of this gearbox is quite admirable. As this uses a simple law of Gear Ratios, it can be used in other creations by anyone!

Designed: Old King Coal

If you've ever played Banjo-Tooie for the Nintendo 64, you probably remember Old King Coal. He was the second Boss, but yet also the easiest. He resided with in his Steam Locomotive, "Chuffy", and after defeating him, he would let you use the locomotive.

The most accepted reason for his below-average difficulty is that he is a required boss. If you fail to defeat him, you cannot use the train; if you cannot use the train, you cannot enter Grunty Industries (the sixth level); and if you cannot enter Grunty Industries, you cannot learn the move required to get to the final area in the game.

"Chuffy" at the Grunty Industries Depot.

So, from a Designer's perspective, if you have only one boss which is required, make that boss the easiest boss in the game. Otherwise the game would be too difficult to complete (if the boss was too difficult, that is).

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Designed: About

This blog discusses the design of things, particularly video games. I hope to cover mainly things from my childhood, such as Banjo-Tooie and LEGO™.

You'll find design traits not only in graphics, but also in gameplay, product design, and in advertising. Most of these are, of course, just observations and not proven fact. For things I myself have designed, you can visit here and forget this site.

So, wether you're an artist looking for inspiration or just someone wondering about the reasons for a game's level design, you'll find some helpful tidbits here.