PreMortem.Games

AUGUST 2, 2024

Despite her parents being anti-games, she enjoyed racing games on her brother’s old Commodore and formed strategic friendships with kids who had Nintendos. So, we use a model where we pay people 10,000 Rand to create a playable prototype in two weeks. This allows others to donate and help more people prototype.

Games 163

Games Prototyping Indy Localization 163

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 8, 2017

With enough games, outliers tend to balance each other out. This is a checklist I like to check off before I start final testing: Get the physical prototype ready. That’s a flaw in a racing game. I’ve ordered an updated version of the prototype. An outlier can cause serious problems in statistical analyses.

Point and Click 130

Point and Click Games Dev Prototyping 130

Designer Notes

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Hence, themed victory conditions were out for Old World , but we needed something in place, especially since we were playing MP within a few months of early prototyping. At competitive difficulty levels, VPs serve as a dynamic game timer that the player is racing against to fulfill their ten ambitions.

AI 40

AI Simulation Mechanics Mobile Gaming 40

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 17, 2022

It launched to little fanfare in Korea but it became the de facto FPS standard in China thanks to a massive focus on continuous releases of new (and often left-field) modes (ranging from bike racing to ‘soccer with knives’) and extravagant, overpowered, expensive weapons and outfits catering to local taste.

Content 52

Content FPS Mobile Mobile 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 21, 2021

The two graphs below show that competition for supremacy of Mid-Core in the Western audience is a tight race between Supercell and FunPlus. The only true bright spot was Art of War , which despite prototype level production quality has scaled up to over 5M in net revenue a month with no stop in sight! Then Yu-Gi-Oh came along.

Mobile 52

Mobile Mobile Cross platform Puzzle 52

Radiator Blog

JULY 6, 2021

My first prototype were sim-heavy, based on basic cellular automata , a technique popularized by Conway's Game of Life (1970) where cells (or anything, really) live or die based on crowding, However this felt too fiddly, with small shapes that changed too quickly. Capitalism, ideology, critical race theory, anything really.

Simulation 52

Simulation Art AI Internet 52

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. Acquiring more Leader tiles gives the player more to try to balance. In my first prototype, I had special “Draft Leaders” cards shuffled into segments of the Adventurer deck. The Race to the Finish.

Tile 130

Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130