History Creator / GregCostikyan

Greg has often taken the role of "bitter veteran" in the video game industry, decrying the stifling model of mainstream publishing and being one of the early advocates of the IndieGame scene. In September 2005, he joined with Johnny Wilson, former editor of ''Computer Gaming World'', to create the startup indie game publisher Manifesto Games. As a digital distribution hub it was ahead of its time but it would be eclipsed by institutions such as Steam and the Humble Bundle, and the site eventually went out of business. Manifesto was for a time survived by the blog [[http://www.playthisthing.com Play This Thing!]], an indie review blog (with regular tabletop features on the side), but this seems to have gone down as well after a time.

* ClusterFBomb: In ''Violence'', one of the ways to earn extra character points is to agree to make one out of every four words out of your character's mouth be an obscenity.

* GenreDeconstruction: ''Violence[[TradeSnark ™]]: The Roleplaying Game of Egregrious and Repulsive Bloodshed'' is a vicious satire of the way nearly anything done in the average roleplaying game would be violent sociopathy in real life.

* LetXBeTheUnknown: ''Violence'' was credited to the pseudonym "Designer X".

* TakeThatAudience: ''Violence[[TradeSnark ™]]: The Roleplaying Game of Egregrious and Repulsive Bloodshed'' is a vicious satire of the way nearly anything done in the average roleplaying game would be violent sociopathy in real life. It opens with the words "Welcome to ''Violence'', you degraded turd", and continues in the same vein.
-->''You puerile adolescent- and post-adolescent scum don't give a tinker's cuss. ...there's no point in trying to write a good set of rules because you idiots can't tell the difference between a good set and a bad set anyway.''

* YouBastard: ''Violence'' consists in its entirety of a long and detailed You Bastard aimed at hack-and-slash roleplayers.

* ''[[TabletopGame/{{Violence}} Violence™: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed]]''

* ''Violence: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed''

* ''First Contract''

* CupHolders: In ''First Contract'', aliens come to Earth peacefully, but are so scientifically advanced, Earth can't keep up with inter-galactic trade. So what ''can'' Earth manufacture? Cheap little doohickeys (which, due to disparities in interstellar exchange rates, the companies involved are able to charge thousands of dollars for). The one that's made in the story is a cup holder that works in zero gravity. It becomes ridiculously popular.
* DearJohnLetter: A "Dear John" DVD in ''First Contract'', from the protagonist's TrophyWife informing him that since he's lost his money, he's lost her too.
* DogFoodDiet: The protagonist of ''First Contract'' is reduced to poverty by the collapse of Earth's economy. After a TimeSkip, we find him working as a cook in a shanty town, cooking what he describes as "cat food" — canned tuna condemned as not fit for human consumption.

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!!Works by Greg Costikyan with their own pages:

[[index]]
* ''TabletopGame/TheCreatureThatAteSheboygan''
* ''VideoGame/MadMaze''
* ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}''
* ''TabletopGame/StarWarsD6''
* ''TabletopGame/{{Toon}}''

Costikyan is also known for his 1994 essay "[[http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf I Have No Words and I Must Design]]", which was one of the first attempts to develop a unified language for game designers to talk about their discipline -- and he did it years before academic game studies even became a thing.

* StrayShotsStrikeNothing: ''Violence'' has its vicious way with this trope in the section of Combat marked "Innocent Bystanders", and points out the consequences of a gun battle (if it can really be called such) between a violent scumbag with an Uzi (your typical ''Violence'' player character) and a little old lady with a revolver in her apartment. The old lady got two shots off before getting cut down, and neither one of them hit Uzi guy, but they did go through the wall (made of cheap modern wallboard which can't stop bullets worth crap), and some poor immigrant in another apartment packed full of them is now without much of her lower arm. Meanwhile, Uzi guy got off twenty shots of which maybe three hit the old lady. The prewar brick wall behind her absorbed the impact of most of the bullets, but the rest went through a window, shattering it and resulting in casualty number two, a bike messenger who was riding below the window when it shattered and is now bleeding on the sidewalk and screaming bloody murder. Meanwhile, whatever bullets didn't go halfway through the bricks of a building across the street went through another window along the way, grazing the head of the kitty sleeping on the windowsill and possibly hitting the personal trainer who lives there, who is now prone on the floor and calling 911 on his cellphone. Needless to say, there's a reason that the law frowns upon firing weapons in city limits.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Toon}}: The Cartoon Role-Playing Game''

* ShoutOut: Costikyan's the title of famous essay "I Have No Words & I Must Design" is a play on Creator/HarlanEllison's ''Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream''.

Greg Costikyan is an American game designer and science fiction writer. His game works spans numerous genres, including [[WarGaming hex-based war games]], {{Tabletop RPG}}s, CardGames, and VideoGames. He worked on game design for many years, including writing and consulting for Nokia.

Costikyan is also known for his 1994 essay "I Have No Words and I Must Design", which was one of the first attempts to develop a unified language for game designers to talk about their discipline -- and he did it years before academic game studies even became a thing.

* ''Paranoia''

* ''Toon: The Cartoon Role-Playing Game''

* ''Mad Maze''

* ''The Creature That Ate Sheboygan''

Greg Costikyan is an American game designer and science fiction writer. His game works spans numerous genres, including [[WarGaming hex-based war games]], RolePlayingGames, CardGames, and VideoGames. He worked on game design for many years, including writing and consulting for Nokia.

* ''Franchise/StarWars: [[TabletopGame/StarWarsD6 The Roleplaying Game]]''

* ''Franchise/StarWars: The Roleplaying Game''

!!Tropes present in Greg Costikyan's works include:

* AffectionateParody
* BlackHumor
* FunPersonified
* PunnyName
* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem
* {{Slapstick}}

Costikyan's works include:

* ''TabletopGame/TheCreatureThatAteSheboygan''

* ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}''

* ''[[TabletopGame/{{Toon}} Toon: The Cartoon Role-Playing Game]]''

* ''VideoGame/MadMaze''

* {{Slapstick}}

Greg has often taken the role of "bitter veteran" in the video game industry, decrying the stifling model of mainstream publishing and being one of the early advocates of the IndieGame scene. In September 2005, he joined with Johnny Wilson, former editor of ''Computer Gaming World'', to create the startup indie game publisher Manifesto Games. As a digital distribution hub it was ahead of its time but it would be eclipsed by institutions such as Steam and the Humble Bundle, and the site eventually went out of business. Manifesto is survived by the blog [[http://www.playthisthing.com Play This Thing!]], an indie review blog (with regular tabletop features on the side).

Greg Costikyan is an American game designer and science fiction writer. His game works spans numerous genres, including [[WarGaming hex-based war games]], RolePlayingGames, CardGames, and VideoGames. He worked on game design for many years, including writing and consulting for Nokia. In September 2005, he joined with Johnny Wilson, former editor of ''Computer Gaming World'', to create the startup indie game publisher Manifesto Games.

!Trope present in Greg Costikyan's works include:

!! Tabletop Games

* ''[[TabletopGame/{{Toon}} Toon: The Cartoon RolePlaying Game]]''

!! Video Games

!! Novels:

Greg Costikyan is an American game designer and science fiction writer. His game works spans numerous genres, including hex-based WarGames, RolePlayingGames, CardGames, and VideoGames. He worked on game design for many years, including writing and consulting for Nokia. In September 2005, he joined with Johnny Wilson, former editor of ''Computer Gaming World'', to create the startup indie game publisher Manifesto Games.