Deconstructor of Fun

DECEMBER 2, 2024

Revamping Mechanics to Match User Expectations Mechanics like tile placement have surged in popularity as they blend accessibility with high engagement. This flexibility highlights how a strong creative approach can directly influence product design to capture new demographics.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics AI Games Studios 52

Tom Francis

MAY 27, 2023

Board setup is random with some attempt at balance, plus a balancing rule: One player chooses which corner to start in, then the other player takes the first turn. And their mounted Bishop grabs the Flame: like Frost, but ignites tiles: units on burning tiles must move or die at the end of their turn.

Playtesting 52

Playtesting Tile Balance Code 52

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

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 20, 2017

In a game I co-designed with Matt Greenleaf, which is currently unpublished, I had come up with a mechanic that was whenever a player made a move, the game state would either go to imbalance or balance. As monks we can only win once we are in perfect harmony, which requires strategic placement of garden tiles to balance our own inner state.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Games Engine Game Designer 130

Tom Francis

MARCH 11, 2017

They’re both games where you move around a grid of different tile types, and the one you’re standing on determines what you can do there. At this point you live or die by what tiles happen to be between you and it – if they all do 1 blue damage and the enemy has 4 blue health, you are dead.

Tile 52

Tile Games Build Fighting 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

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

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

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

One could even make an argument that the less puzzling cores such as bubble shooter or tile blasting are not as good of a fit for an audience like this. After carefully composing a balanced team of fighters, the player takes their party of stalwart heroes into battle. This speaks of the importance of the core gameplay. Core Gameplay.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Tile Mechanics Build 52

Deconstructor of Fun

AUGUST 19, 2024

We will now go through many aspects of what the game is, but keep in mind that we will be looking at the balancing and pricing for one player account in this piece. The event is balanced to provide easy progression upfront, but it significantly slows down as you approach the end. The last stage requires as much as the first ten stages.

Balance 98

Balance Mechanics Games Build 98

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 8, 2024

In my opinion, classes are a fantastic feature : They add a layer of gameplay depth in deck building and usage that was much needed in Mini , while simultaneously providing a great balancing tool to give relevance to specific sets of units and discourage unbalanced combinations, and a great incentive to acquire all units belonging to a Class.

Tile 69

Tile Mechanics Balance Feature 69

Tom Francis

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

The pawn is a shitshow of clumsy balance changes. Unlike every other piece, it can move to some tiles only if they’re empty, and to others only if they’re occupied, and only if by an enemy. OK, so as far as I can tell, the pawn has always been fiddly all the way back to chaturanga, the game chess comes from.

Concepts 100

Concepts Game Designer Game Design Tile 100

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 23, 2023

As certain decks become dominant, players can quickly create counter decks to keep the game balanced and interesting. Location Tiles As a reminder, winning a game in Marvel Snap requires capturing two out of the three location tiles. This means that the tile will show up 40% more often in games.

Feature 95

Feature Mechanics Tile Mobile 95

Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

open for full size) Okay so each tile actually occupies four times the usual amount of space, but what we mean here is that the cell dimensions are doubled. Something in between 1.0x

Render 52

Render Engine Engineering FPS 52

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. Every couple turns it will suck up a new part and merge with it, until either all potential slots are full or there are no more compatible parts nearby. Then beep boop your new friend will self-activate.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Build Point and Click Tile 52

Logic Simplified

NOVEMBER 26, 2024

This type of level designing involves procedural generation where reusable tiles (including power-ups, obstacles, and aesthetic features) are randomly assembled. This is integrated in a way that it creates a balance between randomness and structure, making each run feel new and unpredictable.

Mechanics 40

Mechanics Games Concepts Feature 40

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

Keith Burgun

JANUARY 4, 2023

At different parts of the bridge there were investment tiles, so on a basic level the premise was kind of, “do I move to a relatively unsafe investment tile, or do I BUMP?” You win by bumping the opponent into damage areas, dealing damage to them until their health reached zero, before they could do it to you.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Game Designer Game Design Playtesting 52

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 27, 2020

Order rewards are balanced between the time it takes to manufacture them and the XP and the Coins. These tools are: Pickaxes: Destroys 1 tile and makes adjacent tiles visible. Dynamites: Destroys a row of tiles and makes bottom and top rows visible. TNTs: Destroys 8 tiles around it (3x3).

Co-op 52

Co-op Puzzle Games Mechanics 52

Keith Burgun

JUNE 20, 2022

I mean, part of why I can’t believe that is that for almost a full year after the launch, I was furiously updating the game: two new factions, a new game mode (arguably two), a map editor, tons and tons of balance changes, polishing, bugfixes, you name it. Not to mention porting the game to iOS, Android, Switch, and XBox.

Indy 52

Indy Point and Click Game Designer Game Design 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 17, 2022

On top of a smaller board, Clash Mini features no equipment system, no stat-based synergy system, no shared pool of units and a simplified balance logic of unit selection rolls and resources. New game boards with Tiles that heal Minis or charge their Super abilities are some of the Tile modifiers unlocked through League progression.

Content 52

Content Mechanics Point and Click Mobile 52

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. Probably the biggest improvement relying on that is the new Tiles editor, which has been reimagined based on your requests and reports.

Beta 52

Beta Engine Engineering Feature 52

Designer Notes

OCTOBER 14, 2021

There’s just no way to balance a game with that much variability, and I was afraid to put my thumb on the scale and start covertly killing off rulers who had overstayed their time on the throne. I kept it a secret because I wasn’t sure playing ten rulers would actually work, and it turned out I was right.

AI 40

AI Simulation Mechanics Mobile Gaming 40

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 10, 2021

This increase, sliced by subgenre, was driven mostly by Tile Blast and Puzzle & Decorate. There is no need for a seemingly endless chain of hyper-optimized puzzle levels but instead features a carefully balanced ecosystem of interwoven merge chains. A big advantage of this strategy is its scalability.

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

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 22, 2021

The majority of growth in 2020 in Match-3 games came from Tile Blast, Puzzle & Decorate, and classic match-3 games. Similar to Today’s: Current level setup (clear objectives in X moves or less) Mode: Balance Description: Collect 2 colors of gems roughly at the same pace. With $3.7B A small price to pay.

Puzzle 69

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Mechanics 69

Brand Game Development

JULY 15, 2019

Players weren’t just drafting which tile they wanted most; they were also picking their turn order for the next round. Is it worth taking that better tile at the expense of picking last next round? It is much more interesting than if it was simply “which tile do you want most?” That is an interesting decision.

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. There is also an escalation in strategy as the players fill up their boards by acquiring more and more Leader tiles. They have just a single Leader tile and their monster’s unique “personal craving.”

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 100

Code Educational Education Prototyping 100