Sirlin

APRIL 4, 2015

Flash Duel is a simple and fast card game that in high level play ended up being bogged down by lengthy calculations. We talk about the design changes that address this as well as at least one tricky balance puzzle we faced. At the time of this post, Flash Duel is on kickstarter right now. Please support it if you can.

Game Design 40

Game Design Game Designer Puzzle Balance 40

Logic Simplified

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

This sense of putting a player's abilities to use against a difficult situation in a game (challenge), and rewarding their potential for every challenge they overcome and every progress they make in the game (achievement), makes a player want to play. What is Level Design? Process of Level Designing and Game Development 1.

Mechanics 40

Mechanics Games Playtesting Prototyping 40

The Bottom Feeder

JUNE 12, 2024

Baldur’s Gate 3 Has Mountains of Stuff Over the years, I've tended to make my game designs cleaner. One of the best articles ever written about game design is about Magic: The Gathering. Happily, there are players who get all their fun from solving puzzles like that. That is my personal aesthetic.

Fighting 88

Fighting Puzzle Writing Terrain 88

The Bottom Feeder

MAY 15, 2024

The main problem, alas, is that, while it IS a fascinating landmark for game design, it is not a good adventure. The Tomb of Horrors was an early attempt to solve a very difficult problem: How to balance a turn-based RPG once characters get very powerful. It's one of those awesome, twisty, weird Gygax designs.

Horror 72

Horror Fighting Game Design Game Designer 72

CG Spectrum

JUNE 10, 2024

3D Modelling 3D Animation FX Concept Art 2D Animation Game Design Game Programming 3D Modelling: Shaping Virtual Worlds “3D modelling is a rewarding career where you get to bring concepts and 2D imagery to life, sculpting personality and story into characters, objects, and environments. What does a game designer do?

Film 52

Film Animation Animation Concepts 52

Game Analytics

DECEMBER 5, 2022

One of the reasons why hyper-casual games are so popular is due to how quick and easy they are to make. Simple controls, artwork, and game design make it easy for any developer to pick up. There are other ways to build a game on a budget. Lifeline by Three Minute Games. This is definitely a game for any H.P.

Horror 109

Horror Games Mobile Mobile 109

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 19, 2021

Small Giant did it with Puzzle and Empires. RPG games on mobile in the West reached new heights during the lockdowns. And the Role-Playing Games (RPGs) kept up with the growth generating $3.3Bn year-to-date with a growth of 29% YoY. Looking at the RPIs (revenue per install) the game is trailing too far from its predecessor.

Cross platform 52

Cross platform Mobile Mobile Platformer 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 29, 2024

Many game designers will instantly say: "How can we show the player the same thing? Yes, in an ideal world of paid games, this could be true: a unique gaming experience is played only once. So we decided to loop the puzzles at the same time as adding new ones. They're not going to play it again.

Mechanics 98

Mechanics Content Puzzle Mobile Gaming 98

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 24, 2023

A cold calculating trader would only care about the outcome, but human beings seem to love watching the outcome unfold - a puzzling topic for economists. Sports betting is probably the best example, where the outcome of a wager is a live sporting competition; the bettor’s stake makes them all the more invested to watch the game.

Games 52

Games Point and Click Asset Balance 52

Designer Notes

MARCH 31, 2023

Welcome to My Elephant in the Room: An Old World Design Postmortem. Here are the games that I’ve worked on. Spoiler alert: Civilization 3 and 4 are going to come up a lot in the presentation… I also do a podcast where I interview game designers about why they make games, so check it out if you have time for 4-hour interviews.

Tile 98

Tile Point and Click AI Mechanics 98

The Bottom Feeder

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

(Side note: There is a new game called Brotato, one of those single-stick shooters that are hot now. These are perfectly balanced. If you're interested in systems design, it's a very interesting title.) My latest all-new game only had 57 skills, but all of them were useful sometimes. I spent hours there. Which is fine.

Fighting 91

Fighting Games Balance Writing 91

Game Designing

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Lesson 7: Randomness Summary In this lesson, we explore the role of randomness in games, distinguishing between input and output randomness. But from a super-wide, broad view, it’s more like a game is just something that you can do with your time and you can enjoy it.

Sprite 52

Sprite Mechanics Game Design Game Designer 52

The Bottom Feeder

APRIL 27, 2022

I've been trying to get good at game design for almost 30 years. Maybe Every Game Should Have Three "Bad" Design Choices One of my main problems with game design these days (which I too often fall victim to) is a design to shave off the rough edges. I mean, seriously. Then you find a way to win.

Fighting 52

Fighting Software Writing Game Design 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 14, 2023

Running through the market by genre, Kress noted that King has done quite well, but other genres had suffered badly, with strategy, RPG, match puzzle, and casino games all down double digits. He stressed that games should hold true to the brand’s values, citing Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes as a perfect product-market fit.

Games 59

Games Cross platform Mobile Mobile 59

Deconstructor of Fun

JUNE 6, 2022

But they’ve long since stopped being exclusive to mid-core, cosmetic-driven games and nowadays are present in a constantly growing amount of genres and games. The fact that Battle Passes have been successful on audiences so alien to each other like MOBAs and Match-3 Puzzle fans shows how versatile its design can be.

Content 52

Content Mechanics Balance Mobile 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 10, 2021

Mat Baker has been making mobile games for 15 years. Currently in charge of systems design at Trailmix. Laura Taranto has 12 years experience in casual games and is a product advisor and puzzle game aficionado. Special thanks to Niek Tuerlings for the Merge Game insights. Previously at King and Glu.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Games 52

Radiator Blog

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

This is similar to my tactics games writeup and Enderal (huge Skyrim mod) writeup where I spoil some interesting game designer / systems design things. I don't discuss much of the game narrative. I assume general game design knowledge but minimal Deathloop-specific knowledge. It would feel terrible.

Fighting 52

Fighting NPC Puzzle AI 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 13, 2021

Written by Michail Katkoff , games executive and founder of Deconstructor of Fun, and Niek Tuerlings , Senior Game Designer and author of popular game development blog Ludocious.com. Special thanks for the Hybridcasual design insights to Abhimanyu Kumar , founder of Naavik consulting.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Puzzle Advertising Studios 52

Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

RIF Installers were already a prefab to begin with, one which (without precedent anywhere else in the game) were actually inserted via a separate hard-coded method, so let’s add it as an encounter instead. I wrote about this factor in my recent article on game design philosophy.

Beta 52

Beta Content Balance Mechanics 52

Deconstructor of Fun

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

Industry peers asked me: “What games will you make?” “Do Will you make another puzzle game?”. Some of the puzzle games I’ve worked on. Puzzles are one of the biggest market categories and it continues to grow each year. But now I have a team of specialists making puzzles. These are valid questions.

Studios 52

Studios Build Puzzle Concepts 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 21, 2021

This analysis will give you a full overview of the Strategy games genre, which is the second-largest genre in the Western markets after puzzle. This makes the genre second largest on mobile in (outside key Asian markets) after Puzzle games. Strategy games also represent nearly a half of all Mid-Core revenues.

Mobile 52

Mobile Mobile Cross platform Puzzle 52

Game Design Advice

JUNE 5, 2016

Deep games require knowledge, explanation, creativity, and cleverness. Such a model could also inform our discussions about game design, suggesting directions for design exploration and expanding our palette of analytical tools and techniques. Modeling depth may help us better understand how to think about these things.

Feature 40

Feature Terrain Games Baking 40

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 17, 2020

On looking deeper, it was found that this was driven by two things - 30-35% of the growth was driven by increased IAP integration in various hypercasual mini-genres, most notably Puzzle. The remaining was driven by two titles - “ Crane Game Toreba ” and “ Clawee ” - which together raked in ~$45M over 2019.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Platformer Studios Data 52

Deconstructor of Fun

APRIL 25, 2022

System The system design of the game and the in-game stats balance demonstrate Devsisters’ high standards. The consistency in design logic and gameplay integrating multiple systems show players the wit and excellence in game design choices. The metrics and stats balancing in the game work well!

Baking 52

Baking Simulation Build Animation 52

Deconstructor of Fun

AUGUST 27, 2019

This deconstruct is written by Eva Grillova (Game Designer at Smirk Game Studios) and Abhimanyu Kumar (Mobile Games Consultant). Further, it has been relatively successful in both the East and the West - something that not too many games are easily able to achieve. the second piece of the puzzle.

Balance 52

Balance Content Mechanics Mobile 52

Deconstructor of Fun

DECEMBER 13, 2022

Kevin J Bray (Game Engineer) , another professional with years of entrepreneurship experience (CEO at now defunct Byte Canvas; Executive Director at Tonk Tonk Games), who previously was a developer and lead engineer at League of Legends (about the same time as Maya). And past experience in entrepreneurship.

Studios 52

Studios Mobile Mobile Console 52

Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

Addressing the initial learning curve, introducing enticing mid-game offers, and refining unlocking progression are essential for the game’s long-term success. With Blizzard's expertise in creating compelling end-game content, Warcraft Rumble has the potential to become a major success and influence future game design trends. ?

Mobile 113

Mobile Mobile Mobile Gaming Games 113

Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

Addressing the initial learning curve, introducing enticing mid-game offers, and refining unlocking progression are essential for the games long-term success. With Blizzard's expertise in creating compelling end-game content, Warcraft Rumble has the potential to become a major success and influence future game design trends.

Mobile 52

Mobile Mobile Mobile Gaming Games 52

Brand Game Development

JULY 15, 2019

One of the hallmarks of good board game design is being able to create hard choices. Sounds easy enough to do, but it’s actually really tough from the designer’s perspective! Let’s talk about how you can create hard choices in your board game. The design process really started with the puzzle.

Tile 130

Tile Mechanics Games Puzzle 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 22, 2019

Perfect board game pacing is one of the most underrated aspects of board game design. Somewhere between overwhelm and ennui, there lies a middle ground where a game is perfectly paced. A great board game feels challenging and interesting throughout. At the beginning of the game, a player’s objective is simple.

Tile 130

Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130

Radiator Blog

JUNE 30, 2022

A broughlike is a variation on a roguelike named after designer Michael Brough , who has spoken before on his design patterns like square tiles, orthogonal movement, turn parity, glitching, limited info, simple maze designs, minimal resources. A dense randomized mini-chess puzzle where everything matters.

Code 52

Code Educational Education Prototyping 52