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Games Speak through Mechanics, Not Rules

Brand Game Development

Core Engine: If you strip out all the mechanics that put obstacles in your players’ path, what’s left? The core engine is the bare minimum set of mechanics you need to have a functioning game. Mechanics: Games are not very good until you have constraints that make it hard for players to achieve the objective.

Mechanics 130
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Solo dev Josh Salley (HALbot Studios) “I believe in keeping a good work life balance”

PreMortem.Games

He now works under the name of HALbot Studios on not one, but two first person survival horror games, House of Lies and The Nightmare Escape. Thinking about those ideas and how I could come up with my own spin or tell my own story with similar mechanics. “I just assumed game development involved writing code all day.”

Balance 195
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5 Levels of Communication through Game Development

Brand Game Development

The following excerpt is from Games Speak through Mechanics, Not Rules (Dev Diary: 04/28/17). If you strip out all the mechanics that put obstacles in your players’ path, what’s left? The core engine is the bare minimum set of mechanics you need to have a functioning game. That’s a mechanic. Chess tells a story.

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Frightful Favourites: The GameDev.tv Community’s Top 10 Halloween Game

DameDev.tv

This unique mechanic turns a typically harmless object into your only line of defence against vengeful spirits. The sanity mechanic, where staying in the dark for too long or witnessing horrifying events affects the player’s grip on reality, adds to the game’s intense atmosphere. The Last of Us 9.

Horror 123
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Design review: Botany Manor as a quiet dark detective game

Radiator Blog

Botany Manor is a 3 hour first person puzzle game about growing plants while exploring a big beautiful fancy house that smells like British Bake-Off. Is it heat, wind, light, acidity, soil sugar content, or any of the previous puzzle mechanics we spent the last 2 hours tutorializing? What affects this plant's color?

Puzzle 173
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The Basic Fundamentals of Game Design

Logic Simplified

We will cover everything from crafting intuitive and engaging game mechanics to creating immersive storylines and themes to prioritizing user interface and experience. Whether you're interested in designing platformers, first-person shooters , or role-playing games, these game design fundamentals are applicable to any genre.

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Actually talk to the (author-led AI) murder suspect in Dead Meat by Meaning Machine

PreMortem.Games

His debut game Unknown Number was the first game in what its creator Tom Keane called the ‘First Person Talkers’ genre. Unknown Number put First Person Talkers on the map, with talks at GDC, several indie awards, and even being exhibited at the Smithsonian museum in Washington DC.

AI 129