PreMortem.Games

MAY 19, 2023

Intricate mechanics The dev team faced two major challenges when translating the physical act of climbing to gameplay mechanics: replicating the intricate mechanics of grip, support, weight, and motion, and ensuring user-friendliness. Of these, the climbing system proved to be the most demanding task.

Indy 104

Indy Dev Studios Playtesting 104

PreMortem.Games

APRIL 19, 2024

Final Factory blends factory building and spaceship design with RTS-style troop commanding and classic bullet-hell gameplay. Hence the premise of the game is that you are a Von Neumann probe, sent to consume all the resources in the Universe and build the ultimate (final) factory. Pretty impressive for a largely solo-developed game. “At

Playtesting 129

Playtesting Games Mobile Mobile 129

Ask a Game Dev

DECEMBER 14, 2023

For beginners, try building a variant mode on a board, card, or tabletop game you already have. What happens if you increase or decrease the number of houses you can build? Then playtest your changes and see how things feel. Choose a theme or experience you want players to have, and then build a game to get them to feel it.

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Playtesting Dev Build Game Design 52

Ask a Game Dev

JANUARY 23, 2024

Whenever I do solo dev work, the feature that always takes the longest and tends to require the most work to get something playable by actual players is the UI. Building out the gameplay features is always a lot of fun, but you can only go so far by fiddling with variables and restarting.

Dev 52

Dev Build Content Feature 52

Game Analytics

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

You have to build VR experiences the right way to make this happen. Playtesting is crucial at this point. And many of the regular tricks that devs use to save on rendering costs are lost when building VR games. “It It does take much longer to build a great VR game. VR is all about immersion.

Dev 91

Dev Playtesting Fantasy Render 91

DameDev.tv

DECEMBER 12, 2022

Rick has more than 14 years experience in the game dev industry, working on IP's that include Mario, Transformers, Captain America and Mortal Kombat. Until next time, happy dev'ing! He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's

Game Developer 90

Game Developer Game Development Development Dev 90

AWS Games

JULY 26, 2022

However, building a scalable and reliable session-based online multiplayer game is not easy, since there are many components that need to be developed. With FlexMatch, you can build a custom set of rules that defines what a multiplayer match looks like for your game, and determines how to evaluate and select compatible players for each match.

Build 64

Build Console Code Games 64

Ask a Game Dev

JUNE 4, 2024

Otherwise, the puzzle can cause frustration by making players think that they are missing something when they aren’t, like the nagging feeling one gets when there are leftover parts when building something. It’s important to get playtesters who aren’t familiar with the puzzle to test it, especially noting any frustration points.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Playtesting Advertising Dev 52

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Through playtesting, you can answer the question “do the mechanics suit the theme?”. Figure out the theme you want to capture, try building it through mechanics, then playtest and tweak until you successfully captured your desired theme. The post Theme vs. Mechanics appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.

Mechanics 100

Mechanics Playtesting Concepts Art 100

Astral Clock Tower Studios

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

We're so happy you're joining us for another epically magical installment of the Kristala Dev Blog! This is the place where we break down all aspects of development for 3D Dark Fantasy ARPG Kristala—an indie game in developed by the wildly talented dev team behind women-owned indie games studio, Astral Clocktower Studios. Concept Art.

Dev 52

Dev Animation Animation Concepts 52

Grid Sage Games

DECEMBER 22, 2023

In previous years I’ve opened the review with a collage of dev images of varying themes and content, but approaching the end of this year we have one major theme that stands out, and that I’ll be writing more about below, so let’s hear it for the interface mockups! Numbers go up.

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Beta Alpha Mechanics Build 105

Grumpy Gamer

NOVEMBER 20, 2020

For Thimbleweed Park builds were hand compiled which took a lot of time and was very error prone. More than once I made DEBUG builds rather than RELEASE builds or forgot to change some debug setting back. It's nice to have builds compiled in the cloud and know they are from a pristine environment each time.

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Debug Playtesting Build Engine 40

Ask a Game Dev

DECEMBER 20, 2022

Otherwise, the puzzle can cause frustration by making players think that they are missing something when they aren’t, like the nagging feeling one gets when there are leftover parts when building something. It’s important to get playtesters who aren’t familiar with the puzzle to test it, especially noting any frustration points.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Playtesting Advertising Dev 52

Brand Game Development

MAY 1, 2017

Game reviews build trust. You can keep a dev diary. If something slips through your playtesting, it might very well be caught in the review stage. appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev. Would you spend $50 on someone you don’t know? Probably not. You can release a free PNP version. You can give it gorgeous art.

Games 130

Games Playtesting Dev Prototyping 130

Brand Game Development

JANUARY 2, 2018

Observance is a game of stargazing, engine building, and time management. Every iteration of each game has to be created somehow and there are A LOT of iterations – usually a new one after each playtest, especially in the beginning. I also try to go to as many conventions as I can and playtest as much as possible.

Playtesting 130

Playtesting Games Advertising Prototyping 130

Ask a Game Dev

MAY 26, 2023

This builds anticipation - leveling up should be something that the player looks forward to doing, and that isn’t possible if leveling up doesn’t actually do anything. Earning a level should be a fairly uncommon experience - players need time for the anticipation of the next level to build or it won’t feel meaningful.

Build 52

Build Playtesting Dev Fighting 52

Radiator Blog

MARCH 16, 2023

Last month, game industry documentary makers 2 Player Productions debuted a massive 32-part YouTube game dev doc series Double Fine PsychOdyssey , chronicling the development of Psychonauts 2 from its earliest glimmers of pre-production in 2015 to its final release in 2021.

Art 59

Art Concepts Dev Studios 59

Brand Game Development

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

If you hate the game you’re playtesting, do something different. Don’t just playtest it and refine the mechanics. If you can give your game a story, you build a whole world of context that draws patterns in the mechanics and the theme. This seems obvious, but never lose sight of it. It stalled out for the next four.

Game Designer 130

Game Designer Game Design Tile Games 130

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 3, 2018

Building on the above point, many publishers like to create a portfolio of different kinds of games to reduce risks. They could be manufacturers, retailers, designers, or playtesters. The post Why Board Game Publishers Like Some Games and Don’t Like Others appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev. So they get the axe.

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Games Retail Game Designer Game Design 130

Brand Game Development

APRIL 20, 2020

This gives you a chance to build up useful skills that you can use to serve others. Now circling back to what Matt had asked about finding playtesters, here’s how you might apply these principles. The post How to Turn Your Ideas Into Reality appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev. Applying this Advice to Play-Testing.

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Writing Playtesting Game Developer Game Development 130

Rindoku

OCTOBER 7, 2016

After months of toiling in a secluded attic, the last weeks of which were particularly grueling, we finally took Second Hand to its first public showings: first to Dev-Play in Bucharest and shortly thereafter to Clujotronic in our very own Cluj. It was scary, thrilling, amazing and… we won the Dev-Play Indie Pitch! Color me excited!

Point and Click 52

Point and Click Dev Demo Playtesting 52

PreMortem.Games

AUGUST 15, 2023

At one point I helped King open their Berlin office, interviewing potential members of their initial dev team. Are they building the backend themselves, or using a BaaS? During the following Playtesting session, the game designer is unimpressed with the current state, mentioning missing features. How secure is their solution?

Studios 104

Studios Engine Engineering Communications 104

SOVEREIGN MOON

OCTOBER 12, 2020

Godot is a free and open source game development software that game devs can use to make beautiful 2D and 3D games. . Further over to the right we’ll see the playtest buttons which allow us to play, pause or stop our game. In the following tutorials, we’ll actually get to work building a game! Read the Full Tutorial ?

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Asset Editing Code Scripting 52

Game Dev Unchained

JULY 5, 2023

By involving their player base in the decision-making process, they not only improve the game in real time but also build a strong bond with their audience. It forced them to reassess their development approach and switch to a steam playtesting model, allowing more players to access the game.

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Indy Game Developer Game Development Development 103

Brand Game Development

JUNE 20, 2019

In fact, I’ve even said: “ don’t build a board game, build a business.” I concluded that the best way to broaden the game’s appeal and expand into a new market would to build a new version. After several months of brainstorming and playtesting, we settled on the mechanics of Cover Your Kingdom.

Asset 130

Asset Mechanics Games Balance 130

Grid Sage Games

JUNE 30, 2023

Roguelikes Discord Back in mid-2016 a couple of friends decided to make a new Discord server on the topic of roguelikes, and started asking relevant devs like myself to join. After the links I thought it might also be fun to directly include a printout of their final build state, as taken from the scoresheet itself.

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Feature Content Build Dev 52

Grid Sage Games

MARCH 10, 2022

Beta 11 is finally tackling this project, and we’ve already seen it manifested across propulsion , weapon mechanics , storage units , fabrication and more, but the comprehensive item-by-item review has only come to pass as part of the conclusion to this dev cycle. Categorical Approach. It might return that item when next disturbed (e.g.

Balance 52

Balance Mechanics Beta Prototyping 52

Grid Sage Games

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Although I already demonstrated much of the first new modal UI layout in an earlier forum announcement , I figure I could review those features here in order to provide closure to this series, plus cover some related dev topics as well as the second modal layout. Sample part info as fit into a 45-row UI layout. Finally a darkened background!

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Demo Feature Code Beta 52

Brand Game Development

JUNE 11, 2018

Emelie: Exactly, I also think smaller cons are better to build an initial audience as it is easier to spend more time per visitor at the booth and there is more time to demo your game as well. Brandon: Right, and building an audience is a long, slow endeavor (at least at first). Or overshadowed by larger companies. What to Do at Cons.

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Prototyping Games Localization Demo 130

Game Global

JULY 12, 2021

You should concentrate on building up your writing portfolio and getting regular game writing work. Their job is to choose the clearest, highest-quality words they can assemble, and (usually) give them to other devs to be put into the game. If so, you probably want to be a game writer. And that’s valid! Championing the vision.

Cutscenes 52

Cutscenes Writing Scripting Localization 52

Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

I considered a lot of options here, going as far as thinking of building a new generator from scratch (one that would make encounters much easier to implement), but I liked the established and consistent core theme of existing Garrisons and didn’t want to mess with that. Garrison encounter distribution samples, color-coded by category.

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Beta Content Balance Mechanics 52

Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

NEM and its chaotic effect is a whole different ball game that can be great for some builds, but there’s always the chance it’ll mess you up, so it takes a special embrace-the-chaos sort of mindset to use.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Concepts Balance Terrain 52

Brand Game Development

JULY 22, 2019

After all, he created the pattern building game that we call Tasty Humans , so it makes for a great case study! In playtesting, the time between turns has rarely been an issue. This is an example of how simple playtesting of a change can trump what you, as the designer, “thinks” will be the effect.

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Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 15, 2019

He, after all, created the pattern building game that we call Tasty Humans , so it makes for a great case study! At this point, I have playtested Tasty Humans over fifty times. 4) appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev. Many of you know that our Kickstarter campaign, Tasty Humans , has just debuted on Kickstarter !

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Tile Mechanics Games Puzzle 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 20, 2020

Garret is a sharp guy and a good game dev. ” It’ll be aimed at letting first-time game devs know what they’re getting into with self-publishing. Even if you take out vacation, that’s 9 months – I feel like that’s a surprisingly long time frame to a lot of first time devs.

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Prototyping Games Dev Playtesting 130

Radiator Blog

JUNE 30, 2022

Can we build a sex dungeon that would do Jane Jacobs proud? If you chain together multiple adjacent partners at the same time, you build up a combo multiplier -- the 1st climax is worth 1 L of semen, but the 4th consecutive climax is worth 4 L. Building up huge group sessions is the key to completing later levels.

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Code Education Educational Prototyping 52