Designer Notes

AUGUST 2, 2021

In the original version, one player discovered that the optimum strategy was to cover every fourth tile on the board with a city, a mind-numbingly boring strategy that was always the best choice. Namely, building an urban improvement and producing a specialist on any tile extend the city borders in all six directions.

Tile 52

Tile Build Mechanics Prototyping 52

PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

RimWorld is balanced around sitting on a single map, with everything easily accessible. Without it, rendering the 800.000 tiles that compromise the game map became problematic, so the team had to spend a week on optimizing that. Interacting with the wider world is entirely optional. Being a new engine, Godot is still rough in places.

Dev 118

Dev Development Feature Prototyping 118

Deconstructor of Fun

DECEMBER 2, 2024

AppLovin is seeing high-IP games use ad-based monetization from the hyper-casual world, while casual titles layer in complex mechanics. Revamping Mechanics to Match User Expectations Mechanics like tile placement have surged in popularity as they blend accessibility with high engagement.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics AI Games Studios 52

Deconstructor of Fun

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

This analysis is written by Taras Koshelev (Lead Game Designer at My.Games Venture Capital) who focused on game mechanics and loops and Michail Katkoff (Founder of Savage Game Studios) who covered the market and marketability. After carefully composing a balanced team of fighters, the player takes their party of stalwart heroes into battle.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Tile Mechanics Build 52

PreMortem.Games

DECEMBER 16, 2024

RimWorld is balanced around sitting on a single map, with everything easily accessible. Without it, rendering the 800.000 tiles that compromise the game map became problematic, so the team had to spend a week on optimizing that. Interacting with the wider world is entirely optional. Being a new engine, Godot is still rough in places.

Dev 104

Dev Development Feature Prototyping 104

Deconstructor of Fun

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Together with Mishka, they discuss the highs and lows of Spyke Games, shining a spotlight on their latest sensation, Tile Busters. Rina attributes the success of Tile Busters, their second and most successful game to date, to an experiment gone right. Even if it is not your preferred genre choice. I couldn’t agree more.

Tile 64

Tile Co-op Games Puzzle 64

Deconstructor of Fun

AUGUST 19, 2024

The game and mechanics themselves skew much more casual than the core titles in this comparison, but arguably the game is also slightly more casual than Travel Town and Merge Mansion. The event is balanced to provide easy progression upfront, but it significantly slows down as you approach the end.

Balance 98

Balance Mechanics Games Build 98

Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 20, 2023

In this test recording, a robot created by the Botcube is represented with a Mutant tile, but will have their own once released. But since I do think this mechanic will be fun to play with, and there’s no guarantee that other map will actually happen, I think this is a good opportunity to at least provide a taste of it!

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Build Point and Click Tile 52

Designer Notes

AUGUST 31, 2021

With that preamble done and due praise given, it is all the more remarkable that one bad game mechanic has been preserved from version to version, tweaked perhaps, adjusted at times, but still as clumsy, fiddly, and unnecessary in 2021 as it was in 1991 – the system of placing citizens on tiles.

Tile 40

Tile Terrain Game Designer Game Design 40

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 23, 2023

For a quick and general introduction of the game, it’s a player vs player only CCG game, which limits your cards to only 10 per deck, each game is less than 4 minutes, and it uses a very simple poker-like betting mechanic to keep things interesting. However, Marvel Snap has simplified this mechanic to make it even more accessible.

Feature 95

Feature Mechanics Tile Mobile 95

Keith Burgun

JANUARY 4, 2023

For month after month, I tried fixing them with different supporting mechanisms, different ways that cards were obtained, different ways damage was dealt, and a lot more, but nothing really fixed the fundamental problem. Once I realized that we were going to have to ditch the core mechanism, that kind of meant something like starting over.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Game Designer Game Design Playtesting 52

Deconstructor of Fun

SEPTEMBER 2, 2024

While Match-3 remains the dominant force in this competition, we've seen other subgenres like Merge taking the second place, while others, like Tile Match, showed potential but ultimately fell short. Merge surpassed Blast last year and looks like “Pair” that mainly has Physical Match and Tile Match will do the same at the end of this year.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Mechanics Feature Tile 52

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 27, 2020

Retaining the acquired users with a mini-game : If the hero creative/or playable ad involves a fake gameplay, it is added as a minigame to the events or core mechanics until the player is hooked in with the real in-game content. Game Mechanics Township offers a production puzzle to the players. product management.

Co-op 52

Co-op Puzzle Games Mechanics 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 17, 2022

One of the main problems in Clash Mini is the strong similarity with Clash Royale , the other Supercell auto battler whose gameplay and unit mechanics are very similar. This is an existential threat to Clash Mini since the lack of innovation in-unit mechanics was among the top reasons why Rush Wars failed to captivate players.

Content 52

Content Mechanics Point and Click Mobile 52

Designer Notes

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Simulations can be great games, but they tend not to be a good format for turn-based games with transparent game mechanics. It worked extremely well from a mechanical perspective, which is all we needed for early MP testing before the game even had characters, families, and events. The trick is knowing where symmetry is important.

AI 40

AI Simulation Mechanics Mobile Gaming 40

Mircosoft Game Dev

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Volumetric fog is making its first appearance in Godot 4, balancing a realistic look and fast performance, thanks to the use of temporal reprojection. Previous versions of the engine provided users with a powerful, but obscured mechanism for preparing imported 3D assets. You can probably build half a game with tiles alone!

Beta 52

Beta Engine Engineering Feature 52

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Tasty Humans is a 30-60 minute, tile-laying, pattern-building game for 1-4 players. Carcassonne is a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. But every tile that you claim affects what your rivals can take next. Are you excited? Hobby Board Games.

Tile 130

Tile Games Point and Click Art 130

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 4, 2020

This game packs some of the best balanced, nerve- wracking, strategic gameplay on a mobile device. Even better, the team has showcased a holistic focus on the game: Masterfully balanced the gameplay with regular nerfs/buffs, refreshing the meta Designed for both elder and new players, often forgotten by mature games Took risks (e.g.,

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Mobile Gaming 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 8, 2024

Cosmetics have included multiple new collection mechanisms that grant rewards when acquiring enough of a specific type. This is a standard mechanic (synergies) existing in all other autochess games, and in fact it was quite strange that it wasn’t featured in Clash Mini until now. Source: data.ai

Tile 69

Tile Mechanics Balance Feature 69

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 10, 2021

This increase, sliced by subgenre, was driven mostly by Tile Blast and Puzzle & Decorate. Gone are the days where a reasonable attempt at a core mechanic and a saga map were all you needed for 6 figure revenue. Homescapes implemented ‘Tournament of Champions’ which is mechanically similar to Toon Blast’s implementation.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Games 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 16, 2025

If the demand and supply continue to be well-matched by AXON, I would estimate an overall performance increase of 10-20% in LTV per user, which could be a game-changer for developers balancing the classic CAC vs LTV equation in this extremely difficult climate. To balance CPIs (now $1.20 and maintaining high margins is over.

Mobile Gaming 52

Mobile Gaming Mobile Mobile Advertising 52

Brand Game Development

JULY 15, 2019

Particularly when hard choices come from simple mechanics. I knew I needed a mechanic that gave players a choice of one adventurer from several options. When selecting a game mechanic, it is the most familiar solution. This was a warning that I might be taking the path of least resistance when picking a mechanic.

Tile 130

Tile Mechanics Games Puzzle 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 22, 2019

So often, when we’re balancing our designs , it’s because we’re trying to nail down board game pacing. In each of the design diaries that I have written so far, I have focused on a specific game mechanic or isolated portion of the game. They have just a single Leader tile and their monster’s unique “personal craving.”

Tile 130

Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 22, 2021

Royal Match Royal Match is a perfect example of finding success through improvements - not step-change innovation - cherry-picking the strongest mechanics from the best games to create a new top game. The majority of growth in 2020 in Match-3 games came from Tile Blast, Puzzle & Decorate, and classic match-3 games. With $3.7B

Puzzle 69

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Mechanics 69

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. L loss or often worse, since cops can exploit the same chain reaction mechanic as the player.

Code 40

Code Education Educational Prototyping 40