PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

A community manager and new game designer. A game filled with cute armoured babies on a brave mission to save their daycare from a goblin invasion. One of those games was Street Fighter. Kamo remembers, “It was the biggest game back then. But I often wondered why there weren’t more peaceful games.

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Code Prototyping Engine Engineering 166

Brand Game Development

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

This week while working on my current board game design, a lot of things have come into focus. Now it’s time to start tweaking board game rules. This is where board game design often becomes very tricky. Need help on your board game? Consider How Much Challenge You Want Your Game to Have.

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Balance Games Communications Mechanics 130

The Bottom Feeder

JUNE 12, 2024

It was a bold choice to ship this game with only one romance option. I wanted to write a third and final article about Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3 for short), a really great game that most people have moved on from, but I want to talk about the most important part of any RPG: LOOT. That said, the balance in this game is very strong.

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Fighting Writing Puzzle Terrain 98

Keith Burgun

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

(Above: some WIP pixel art from Wizbane) You might have noticed I’ve been writing about and playing a lot of RPGs recently. Random Encounters that are Encounters (not just fights). I’ve already written a bunch of songs for this game. Awesome original soundtrack.

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Fantasy Pixel Art Fighting 119

Game Dev Unchained

MAY 9, 2023

The Transformative Landscape of Game Development: A Deep Dive with Willem Delventhal As a digital ecosystem thrives and transforms at a rapid pace, a recent conversation with game designer and educator Willem Delventhal offered insights into the evolving realm of game development.

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Indy Education Educational Game Design 98

Ask a Game Dev

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

Obviously, the Ice Dungeon is too big for a single task, so we break it down into smaller sub-tasks like "Build the boss fight for the Ice Dungeon", "Build the layout for the Ice Dungeon", "Build the regular encounters for the Ice Dungeon", and so on. Larger tasks like "Build the Ice Dungeon level" are assigned to the Ice Dungeon level owner.

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The Bottom Feeder

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

I'm a nobody on the outside, looking at a giant development monolith and trying to figure out how this game could possibly have ended up where it did. I don't want to write a review. That fight really stomped me." "Do Designers are sensitive and can generally pick up non-verbal cues. Its flaws are interesting flaws.

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Fighting Games Balance Writing 95

Brand Game Development

MARCH 16, 2018

You need to make a great game. You need to play-test it a lot – alone, with friends, with family, with blind play-testers, and with game designers. You need to know exactly how you’re going to print and ship the game. Maybe you need to write press releases or make a list of local game stores to contact.

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Dev Games Localization Fighting 130

Keith Burgun

NOVEMBER 25, 2023

Sadly, also a way overly complicated combat system and overall it has “modern videogame over-smoothed-ness” IN STARS AND TIME – Very cool game that I recommend you go check out. Great art, great music, good writing. I was going to write “too long”, but there is no correct length for an RPG.

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Fighting Fantasy Balance Software 59

Keith Burgun

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

I’ve been working extremely hard this year on Spellstorm (among other projects) – so much so that I sort of forgot to write something about it here on my blog, I’ve realized! I did write this piece over at its BoardGameGeek page, so do check that out to begin with, if you haven’t already: [link].

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Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 18, 2017

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the seventh of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Need help on your board game? This is something that happens in game design a lot.

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The Bottom Feeder

MAY 11, 2022

It's such a big, unique, popular game that not picking it apart a bit is game-writer malpractice. Even if you hate From Software games, and many do, if you care about game design as an art, it's worth a good look. Fortunately, as long as the rest of the game is good, people will only complain. And honestly?

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Balance Fighting Art Software 52

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 10, 2021

I should have predicted a $10 billion-a-year game if I wanted to sound like a true visionary. In my heart, I am a game designer. I spend most of my waking hours thinking about game mechanics and how they will make players feel. Fighting Purchase Regret with Ownership. Fighting Existential Dread.

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Asset Games Fighting Mobile 52

iXie gaming

APRIL 3, 2023

By the end of this article, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to produce high-quality art for mobile games that captivates players and sets your game apart in a competitive market. This entails comprehending the game’s genre, intended audience, plot, and general theme. So, let’s dive in!

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Mobile Gaming Art Mobile Mobile 52

Keith Burgun

JULY 29, 2022

Of course there are dozens of established techniques that help designers create a sense of wonder – hiding information, increasing interactivity, increasing scope or density, etc – and I’m definitely not saying that you shouldn’t use these.

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Fantasy AAA Concepts Games 52

Deconstructor of Fun

DECEMBER 11, 2019

While writing this post, this news article went live. The most notable move being the opening of a Berlin studio that is categorically focussed on “casual” games, with key hires coming in from Blizzard, King, Rovio and the likes. Need we say more. Source: PocketGamer.biz. So, where are the market leaders going?

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Data Advertising Studios Games 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 15, 2022

Lost Ark outshines other MMO games because each element mentioned above is polished to the next level. Balancing relies heavily on gear, maps are crowded with question marks, Boss fights feature repetitive mechanisms. Though, all of these foibles could be found in other games as well.

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Deconstructor of Fun

DECEMBER 12, 2021

Sky Mavis was valued at $3B; keep in mind that Sky Mavis owns 21% of the fully diluted AXS token supply, which once fully unlocked will be worth over $7 billion based on prices at the time of this writing. Further, there are also two Boss Fights at Levels 21 and 36, which give the player 200 and 300 one-time SLP rewards.

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Mechanics Games Balance Game Design 52

Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

I wrote about this factor in my recent article on game design philosophy. Failing that (gets blasted in a fight? Almost sounds like RIF, but by design the two are actually mutually exclusive options, so I look forward to seeing who uses it, and when and how. hacking attempts unsuccessful?),

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Beta Content Balance Mechanics 52

Deconstructor of Fun

APRIL 25, 2022

As the builder of the kingdom, players have the god like power to write the story for their cookies as a part of designing and changing the layout of the the space. System The system design of the game and the in-game stats balance demonstrate Devsisters’ high standards. Interactive Facilities for Some Cookies.

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Grid Sage Games

MARCH 10, 2022

The scope of this rebalance is way too large to cover in its entirety, and while I don’t plan to write about every aspect, we’ll be looking at the broad strokes and pick out some representative examples here and there. This is a pretty good example of the heavy influence interface limitations can have on game design.

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Balance Mechanics Beta Prototyping 52

The Bottom Feeder

OCTOBER 18, 2023

At some point in the last several decades of video games, everything became a role-playing game. Turns out, if your game design 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." Nobody could write Asteroids now. That's the loop.

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Games Fighting Art Fantasy 83

The Bottom Feeder

DECEMBER 17, 2024

Since I write a bit about the Wicked movie I’m putting this image at the top to make the thumbnails for this article more appealing. Stirring Up Mess On Twitter Vogel's 1st Law of Video Game Visibility: "No matter how passionate an online 'controversy' about a game is, 99% of its players will never even know about it."

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AI Indy Games Agent 80

The Bottom Feeder

OCTOBER 13, 2022

Whenever I write about a topic that upsets me, I calm myself by illustrating it with charming, reassuring stock photos. I Am a Public Figure When I release a game or write something visible to the whole world, even a tiny something (Warning: Twitter counts!), Game designers, writers, comic artists. Mercilessly.

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Writing Internet Fighting Point and Click 95

The Bottom Feeder

MAY 15, 2024

It was famously designed by Gygax to mess with the players in his own campaign and provide meat for players who came to him and said they could beat anything he threw at him. The main problem, alas, is that, while it IS a fascinating landmark for game design, it is not a good adventure. The older one is my copy.) Pwned, n00b.

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Horror Fighting Game Design Game Designer 78

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 20, 2020

For example, entering Fighting games is nearly suicidal effort. The sub-genre is dominated by Marvel and Dragon Ball games and the sub-genres graveyard is filled with high-quality titles like Mortal Kombat X, Injustice and WWE Mayhem. Fighting games install trends are spiky as is the revenue rate. Same Studio.

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Puzzle Fighting Studios Art 52

Sirlin

APRIL 26, 2019

My predictions below relied on the premise that good writing would basically force some events to happen, and I was thrown by a loop by the, well, not good writing. I leave this prediction post up for reference anyway —- I’m going to give my predictions for how Game of Thrones ends up. You can throw all that out. Bran’s power.

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Game Design Game Designer Games Writing 40

The Bottom Feeder

APRIL 8, 2022

I'll get into writing again soon, but for now a few stray thoughts. Based on Steam achievement percentages , players are engaging with this game to an wild extent. I'll write a big thing about it eventually, because how can you not? Games like this are where indie games shine brightest. It got good reviews.

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Writing Games Editing Indy 52

iHobo

JUNE 8, 2022

To get stories into open worlds, designers have to seed the huge landscapes with signposts that push to set piece encounters, a technique I have compared to 'plot origami' From a game design perspective, this is often brilliant - both Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild have shown the immense appeal this can have when it is done well.

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Open World Point and Click Fighting Games 55

Ask a Game Dev

MARCH 7, 2023

The most important thing here is that, while the game designers restricted the player from his or her full range of gameplay abilities, it still allows the player to look, shoot, and throw grenades - all core elements of being a soldier. When you’re sitting down to write and design your story, you must remember this.

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Cutscenes Fighting Entertainment Writing 52

The Bottom Feeder

APRIL 27, 2022

It's also hard to criticize, since From Software games tend to be mean and confusing and sadistic on purpose, so anything that makes you mad was probably put there intentionally. But since I can't resist writing about the thing, I want to start with the key question: Why do people love these games so much, despite the sadism.

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Keith Burgun

JANUARY 27, 2023

I thought the writing was good (great, for a videogame) but the actual combat I found to be very annoying; real time button mashy combat where the enemies have gigantic health bars resulted in my hand literally aching after beating one boss. The Good The writing starts off incredible. The opening cutscene literally made me cry.

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Writing Fantasy Fighting Cutscenes 52

Moonmana

APRIL 7, 2023

In Unity, you write code using the C# language, while in Unreal, you use C++. When working with Unreal, users don’t require deep knowledge of codes or even a basic understanding of how to write them. Games can be developed through the tools in the integrated visual scripter called Blueprint.

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Engine Engineering Game Engine Games 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

AUGUST 10, 2017

The motivation for this article is that many devs asked me to write it for a long time. Despite being the lead developer of Godot, I have almost 20 years of experience developing and shipping games, and a decade of experience as technical consultant. Do not bother with design. a fighting game), is animation.

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Prototyping Alpha Games Point and Click 52

Tom Francis

MARCH 11, 2017

Gunpoint was derivative, but at least it was derivative of many things rather than any one game. This is not unoriginal game design, it’s playable games criticism! I used to write about where games went right or wrong, now I actually try fixing their problems and find out if I’m right!

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The Bottom Feeder

AUGUST 30, 2023

This is a huge, sprawling game. They put years into writing it, finished it, and spent another year polishing it! It is full of creativity, crazy design decisions, and lots of simple, dumb fun. You may have heard many complaints about flaws in the game. And if you are in a college studying Game Design?

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Fighting Puzzle Games Engine 100

Radiator Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2022

A homophobic English farmboy is forced to work with a hunky Romanian farmhand, and so inevitable muddy fight sex and simmering romance ensues. And anyway, to me, kindness coin design is a less grievous sin than a game that pretends to have any meaningful sex systems at all.

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