Designer Notes

AUGUST 31, 2021

The following is an excerpt from the Designer Notes for Old World. The game, a historical 4X set in classical antiquity, released on July 1, 2021, and is available for purchase here. The first Civilization game was like a game design thunderbolt, sent from the heavens and marking everything it touched.

Tile 40

Tile Terrain Game Design Game Designer 40

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that are never quite worth taking advantage of, items that haven’t lived up to their potential, or were later superseded by other options but remained unchanged, or even long-term experiments that were included at some point but never updated/expanded/removed.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

Grid Sage Games

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Overall Rogue doesn’t really have many different item characteristics to modify or games systems to interact with, which is a primary limiting factor in the extent of randomization a game can support. Brogue’s trippy colors come from impactful terrain features like water, lava, and gases. Low on treads or armor?

Data 52

Data Terrain Balance Mechanics 52

Mnenad

APRIL 9, 2018

Designing the game world's creatures. As I promised in this chapter I will dig deeper into the designing process around the creatures that will be walking on the procedural terrain. My personal solution was to program my own shape generator, based on values from the terrain generator. Shape generation tool.

Terrain 52

Terrain Concepts Art Mesh 52

Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Some roguelikes don’t go heavy on realism, in which case backtracking for this reason can be considered a non-issue and solely a decision to be made within the greater mechanical design, though this does mean progress ends up feeling gamier overall. Design Control.

Point and Click 52

Point and Click Mechanics Feature Open World 52

Radiator Blog

OCTOBER 13, 2022

It takes good parts of other good games, and skilled talented people spent lots of time and money on it. But if you're already familiar with all the game design deities invoked here, there probably aren't enough design risks nor genuinely subversive ideas. The cult of the game industry is most powerful of all.

Indy 52

Indy Film Games Point and Click 52

Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

I’m reminded of Beta 11’s spicing up the main complex with Heavies and Cargo Convoys , though in this case it’s not just adding one or two new mechanics but instead about turning Garrisons into proper branch maps in terms of content distribution… Encounter Architecture. …alert level xD. If available, that is.

Beta 52

Beta Content Balance Mechanics 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 15, 2022

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. Battle: Simplified skill point system and amazing visual effects The core of the skill system relates to balancing and mechanisms.

Cutscenes 52

Cutscenes Art Content Mechanics 52

Radiator Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2022

You can place this game in a tradition of walkie-talkie games like Firewatch or Wheels of Aurelia. Here my walking mechanic borrows some sensibility from Death Stranding, where terrain can seriously slow down the player's speed, so a skilled player should micro-optimize their route a little and avoid water / hills / obstacles.

Pixel 52

Pixel Film Art Prototyping 52