PreMortem.Games

JANUARY 30, 2025

Eugene, the solo developer behind Voidmaw , has spent three years crafting Katanaut , a fast-paced action-roguelite where players embody a katana-wielding astronaut fighting to escape a collapsing space station. And of course, balancing everything like coding, art, marketing, and playtesting can be exhausting.

Development 138

Development Playtesting Prototyping Point and Click 138

PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

But the process doesn’t end there, and usually I keep discovering things that make me go back and forth and iterate, playtest, iterate, refine, playtest, iterate… I definitely recommend getting feedback from external playtesters at each step.” “I What’s the biggest lesson learned from this project?

Dev 160

Dev Playtesting Art Games 160

Brand Game Development

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

As I said last week , “rules regulate the way mechanics are implemented. A mechanic is the concept behind the game and the rule is the way that it’s handled to ensure balance.” Playtest a Ton. Think long and hard about how much you want the game to fight back against the players. I have some guidelines.

Balance 130

Balance Games Communications Mechanics 130

Brand Game Development

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

one place I’ve encouraged surprise is the facedown card mechanic. If you hate the game you’re playtesting, do something different. Tasty Humans is about monsters fighting humans instead of the other way around, which gets a sick laugh out of everybody who sees the game. In War Co. , It stalled out for the next four.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Tile Games 130

Brand Game Development

MARCH 9, 2020

There is some bitter truth behind the joking that Monopoly makes families fight. I think I said it best in 2016 when I first wrote about Monopoly : Despite letting leaders run away and providing inadequate catch-up mechanics, Monopoly is not a fast game. Watch your playtesters’ reactions.

Game Design 130

Game Design Game Designer Playtesting Games 130

Sirlin

JUNE 13, 2015

I want to show you some of what I'm working (Codex, Flowchart, and a Fighting game) and tell you about Patreon. Patrons helped playtest and also just point out errors or give suggestions how to improve things. Codex, Flowchart, and now.the Fantasy Strike fighting game (yes, really!). Instead.it's fun.

Fighting 52

Fighting Fantasy Art Build 52

Grid Sage Games

MARCH 10, 2022

Mechanics that are never quite worth taking advantage of, items that haven’t lived up to their potential, or were later superseded by other options but remained unchanged, or even long-term experiments that were included at some point but never updated/expanded/removed.

Balance 52

Balance Mechanics Beta Prototyping 52