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Everdell is a worker placement, tableau-building board game. As the name suggests, Everdell has a fantasy setting, and is indeed named for a charming valley within the game’s world. Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators. Cute fantasy themes go a long way.
Over the last few years, I have went through a lot of the Final Fantasy series. I have recently beat 5, 9, 10, 13, 13-2, Remake and Rebirth (which I reviewed here), and I also played a lot of almost every other non-MMO mainline entry in the series (in the distant past I have also beaten final fantasies 1, 4, 6, and 7), plus direct sequels.
There's a new episode of my Raw GameDesign podcast up for my ($10+) patrons, here. That same podcast link also has links to all the other episodes of Raw GameDesign too, btw. This is "raw gamedesign" in the truest sense in that we are lost in the forest here. Which modes even exist? How are they arranged?
Over the last six months, I guess partially because I was doing a bit of traveling, but also partially because I got a Retroid handheld and a Steam Deck (both of which are phenomenal, game-changers for game-playing, for me at least), I’ve been on this crazy Final Fantasy kick. Let me know what you think!
The Power Of Fantasy And Make-Believe To understand why the Deck is such an iconic creation, ask this question: What is the point of fantasy? Fantasy is a human universal. The "evil" races are a manifestation of the occasional need to fight for our survival, on an individual or national level. No hard feelings.
In this sense, playing a 75% finished game is more useful than playing a 100% finished game. So this post will focus on my read of the general gamedesign and player experience. You're fighting not only the privatization of public health but also reckless climate engineering! But not really.
Fantasy Strike is our new fightinggame. This podcast explains what Fantasy Strike is all about. We cover the high concept about making a fightinggame more accessible from top to bottom than anything else we've seen, the specific game mechanics we chose to accomplish that, and the resulting dynamics of how it plays.
Tasty Humans is a 30-60 minute, tile-laying, pattern-building game for 1-4 players. You are a fantasy monster trying to sate your insatiable appetite. As you and your fellow monsters toss around the village king, you attract a steady buffet of adventurers who try – poorly – to put up a fight!
I have a free podcast series on gamedesign, here. In this latest Raw GameDesign episode, I discuss how we might use advanced AIs in the Fantasy Strike fightinggame, if we had access to some pretty great AI tech. I also have a second podcast that's just for my Patreon supporters.
Fantasy Strike is available now on Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , and Steam (Windows / Mac / Linux). There are several notable features and innovative things about the game, so I’ll summarize them here. User Interface for Friend Matches This is the kind of innovation that isn’t new to the world, but it IS new to fightinggames.
Starting somewhere in 2020, I started this huge dive into the Final Fantasy series – strangely enough, starting with the XIII trilogy. This article , in particular, from Nintendo Power, I have a distinct memory of reading and being totally transfixed by the concept of the world of Final Fantasy 1. (I A cool, fun game.
It takes me a long time to build up the energy to pour in the number of hours a game like this requires. It's a 2020-vintage roguelike, which means: A bunch of rooms with fights. Storytelling like this is a great way to juice your game with some nice texture, but know its limits. You get money to buy randomly selected upgrades.
This is similar to my tactics games writeup and Enderal (huge Skyrim mod) writeup where I spoil some interesting gamedesigner / systems design things. I don't discuss much of the game narrative. I assume general gamedesign knowledge but minimal Deathloop-specific knowledge. Limited regen (e.g.
We discuss "easy special moves" in fightinggames. What is a game with "easy special moves" actually trying to do? Moves being easy—in and of itself—tells you nothing about whether the techniques and combos in a game are easy to do or not. Hosts: David Sirlin & Sean "MrGPhantome" Washington
Within broader gamedesign culture, the theme also invokes an awkward aspect of cultural appropriation and reduction. On the other hand, why shouldn't our fantasy settings involve Mesoamerican and Andean influences? The textures are fine! It echoes colonizer arguments about "savages" who "need" to be conquered.
Will probably beat 5 or so more games and call it good.) I wrote about UFO50, that it should be the textbook for any gamedesign class. Much of what UFO50 does is it takes existing game genres and compresses them. It offers a game in that genre that only last 2-3 hours but gives a full, satisfying experience.
Codex is a new take on customizable card games. Last week I posted a new Raw GameDesign podcast episode (for $10+ patrons) where I discuss "reset buttons" in Codex (cards that blow up the board so you can possibly come back from a very bad position). Last month, I offered early access to (physical) Codex cards.
At some point in the last several decades of video games, everything became a role-playing game. Turns out, if your gamedesign is a little lacking, all you need to do is spackle on a bit of "Make bars fill up to make numbers get bigger to make bars fill up." The trick is making sure the fighting part is engaging.
In a past era of gamedesign, we complained when combat games had obligatory stealth sections -- now we have story games with obligatory combat sections. Before you begin the zombie-filled Palace quest, the game UI helpfully advises, "if you're not a fan of action or horror gameplay, feel free to decline this quest."
I want to show you some of what I'm working (Codex, Flowchart, and a Fightinggame) and tell you about Patreon. Codex, Flowchart, and now.the Fantasy Strike fightinggame (yes, really!). Everyone, even non-patrons, get my main podcast about gamedesign for free. Instead.it's fun.
is one of the most striking indie games coming out this summer. With graphics that wouldn’t look out of place in a Dreamworks animated movie and sword fighting action that would make Zorro blush. To dig a solid fantasy out of that ‘omelette’, we found ourselves essentially relying on a good ol’ helping of subtractive design.
FINAL FANTASY XVI – After playing a bunch more Kingdomheartslikes and getting more used to that, I’ve gotta say, this is a very well made Kingdomheartslike. Whereas if you compare that to something like Final Fantasy 13, there is a pretty central thing that’s being headed toward the entire time. Bad FIGHT pacing.
As of this writing, we’re in the 8th year of Game of Thrones seasons with only 4 episodes left, and yet there are numerous major reveals still left. By looking at the show from a gamedesign standpoint, I think we see how a lot of it has to end up. Game of Throne is, on a casual viewing, a very complicated show.
All the money goes to paying for artists on Codex and also for artists and programmers on the Fantasy Strike fightinggame. You'll get to see all the behind the scenes versions of everything I work on if you're at the $25 level and you'll get my Raw GameDesign podcast at the $10 level and above.
There are almost never fights in town – you are almost always entirely safe in town. I’m playing through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth now (which I am loving) and it’s very clear in that game, whether you are in Outside , Dungeon or Town , pretty much at all times.
So what we end up with, over time, is a “tradition”, or traditions within a blanket term like “RPG” There are so-called “ARPGs” like Diablo, JRPGs like Final Fantasy, CRPGs like Ultima, tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem, and so on. Over the years, I have loved games in all of these categories.
Thanks to a crazy head engineer with a god complex, ten thousand players are now playing an ultra-realistic fantasygame in a virtual world with real-world stakes. So author Reki Kawahara drew on his familiarity with the games of the day and their systems to create what he thought would be a super-cool virtual reality game.
I would have played it sooner, but I was on this huge Final Fantasy kick (which is still ongoing, to be honest). I mean, you spend a LOT of time fighting in this game. It stands in stark contrast to 1995’s Final Fantasy V, where it’s extremely exciting to play around with the classes. Wish me luck.
Many gamedesigners 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. People usually start talking about triple-A games as examples. This surprised us, as Clockmaker is a mystical game.
This analysis is written by Taras Koshelev (Lead GameDesigner 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. Players fight against the Dark Lord as a Boss in the final level of the first chapter.
The game development industry is booming, and it’s impossible not to notice how quickly it’s expanding. Thanks to groundbreaking technology advancements, developers can now take advantage of cutting-edge software and game engines which enable them to create fantasy worlds in video games.
Despite being a casual game, Cookie Run: Kingdom published a 200-page art collection with detailed backstories, characters, and designs, showing the developer’s ambition of building its own universe. As a mobile game, how did Cookie Run: Kingdom accomplish this through its gameplay mechanics?
When we talk about MMO, many may relegate this game category to “old-school” or “niche.” Only MMO like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 are still generally recognized by western gamers. Lost Ark outshines other MMO games because each element mentioned above is polished to the next level. The rough cutscene).
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