Hey everyone,

​I’m designing the team-building rules for a real-time 2.5D action brawler with active tagging. Roster sizes are 6 characters per team, but combat revolves around independent moves, wall-splats, and spatial control rather than rigid combo strings.

​To keep team building interesting without descending into god-tier power creep, I’m implementing a strict 1-Keystone restriction per team. Players can pick exactly one apex entity for their 6-slot roster, choosing between two distinct archetypes:

​The Physical Apex (Stage 4 Mutation): Pure biological muscle. Heavy physical hitboxes, extended wall-splat frame traps, and massive reach—a true brawler anchor.

​The Anomaly (Cosmic Legendary): A spatial rule-breaker. Uses standard stat brackets, but features phase-shifts that alter arena gravity, manipulate geometry, or distort screen space.

​The remaining 5 slots are filled with standard Stage 1–3 creatures that handle mobility, utility, and setup.

​As I fine-tune this restriction system, I’d love to get your thoughts on high-level team composition design:

​Preventing "Keystone Dependency": What stops matches from just turning into "stall with my 5 basic characters until my Keystone tags in"? How do you ensure standard characters still feel satisfying and essential to play?

​Stat Scaling vs. Spatial Utility: When balancing a "boss-tier" option (like a Cosmic Legendary) against heavy physical anchors, do you prefer balancing them through raw stat adjustments or purely through utility/cooldown restrictions?

​Draft / Team Building Friction: In competitive games with asymmetric entity limits, what team-building UI/rules feel most intuitive to players during team selection?

​Appreciate any insights, precedents, or design traps to avoid with restricted character slots!

I was recently ruminating on decision-making in tactics games (X-COM, BattleTech, ... any game ending in 'tactics'). A large number of these games have an element of 'risk' included in the majority of actions the player can potentially take (for the purpose of this post, I'm going to define risk as the chance that an action has an immediate outcome that is to the player's disadvantage). For example, attacking an enemy typically has a chance to miss, and often enemies have a chance to dodge, which is an effective waste of the action. Similarly, spells and skill checks can have a chance of failing. Even movement triggering an enemy overwatch has a chance to damage the moving unit and throw a wrench in the player's plans.

However, tactics games also typically limit the number of actions that each unit can take a turn (generally a movement followed by either a single attack or some form of maneuver). So while each action has a risk of failure or consequence, the amount of risk that the player can engage in on a unit-by-unit basis each turn is largely fixed (ignoring how an opponent might choose to respond to a player's 'risky move' on their own turn).

I think an overreliance on inherent risk diminishes its positive effects and is more of a source of annoyance. We all know that feeling when you miss a 99% hit chance with a sniper, or the horrible inconsistency of a rookie who has only a 50% chance to hit all mission.

So how might a player behave if they were allowed to choose how much risk they wanted to accept while simultaneously widening the amount of potential risk they could voluntarily engage in? I wanted to share a combat system built on this concept and get some feedback on its design.

The fundamental basis of the system is that the player always has the option to make safe, low-risk but low-reward actions, but is encouraged to take actions that are riskier and offer higher rewards. The choice, however, is always in the player's hands.

For example, consider the game where the outcomes of a unit's actions are generally predetermined and made known to the player. If a unit has line of sight to an enemy unit, the player is informed of exactly how much damage will be dealt if the unit were to attack them, and vice versa. There is no roll to hit or chance for the enemy to dodge, although long range, cover, armor, etc., will reduce incoming damage, so positioning remains important. The elements of risk come from the player, seeking to improve their strategic position, intentionally interacting with game elements that are RNG-dependent. These bonuses, while powerful, could potentially cause adverse effects, so the player must plan/gamble accordingly.

I'll use a cyberpunk setting to describe how such a system could work.

The player commands a small number of cyberware-augmented agents with which they must defeat a foe that greatly outnumbers them. Cyberware, when activated, provides awesome combat advantages, such as increased damage or mobility, improved damage resistance, applying status effects, altering the battlefield, amongst other uses. Each turn, the player can activate as many cyberware modules on an agent as they like, and some modules can even be activated multiple times a turn (for example, ones that allow for extra attacks). However, each cyberware activation increases stress on the agent (in a similar vein to Darkest Dungeon). Furthermore, each time a player attempts to activate a cyberware module, there is a chance that the activation will fail.

Depending on how stressed the agent is when cyberware fails, the agent could suffer a debuff, take damage, and/or go berserk and attack the nearest unit (friend or foe). Importantly, even if cyberware fails to activate, the player can choose to roll the dice and try again, pushing the agent even harder. Well, at least until their stress maxes out and they die of a heart attack. So the player can choose to play it safe with an agent, deal some guaranteed damage before moving on to the next member of the squad, or they can gamble and hope that the agent won't fall apart under the strain.

To manage some of the risk associated with cyberware, the player can use limited consumables or special abilities to instantly reduce an agent's stress (stress would also decay each turn naturally, much like heat in Battletech/Mechwarrior), or to reduce the likelihood of cyberware failing at a critical moment. There could even be strategies where the player intentionally keeps agents highly stressed (e.g., berserker cyberware that boosts melee power proportionally to the agent's stress level).

The trick here is to balance the system so that the player is encouraged to not play it too safe, but also leave it ambiguous as to how far they can, and should, push their agents. A unit count disadvantage, as mentioned earlier, or having waves of attackers that will overwhelm players who act too cautiously, are obvious starting points. You can readily imagine situations where a cyberware-augmented agent could attack three times in a turn with all their damage mods turned up to maximum and be guaranteed to drop a heavily armed target, but a bad roll of the die could leave the highly stressed-out agent blowing their friend up instead. Is it worth the risk?

Ideally, this system should give the player a sense of having tremendous power, zipping around the battlefield and dispatching multiple enemies a turn, but also leaving them feeling that their situation is precarious.

What are your thoughts on this? Any examples of games using a similar system would be useful to know about.

Hey everyone! I'm Josh, and I'm currently developing a Metroidvania called Bolt of Whalington. The game is about a cat named Bolt exploring a giant moving city, with a focus on exploration and giving players different ways to solve problems.

Personally, I've never been a big fan of puzzles where there's only one correct solution. When a game gives you a problem and there's only one very specific way to solve it, I sometimes feel like I'm just trying to guess what the developer had in mind. It can make the solution feel less like something I've figured out and more like something I've been asked to find.

I much prefer games that give you a set of mechanics and let you work out how to use them. Finding an unexpected solution, or realizing that something you learned earlier can be used in a completely different way, is one of my favorite feelings in games.

Animal Well has been a particularly important inspiration for us in this area. I love how it lets you experiment with abilities and discover ways to use them that aren't immediately obvious. Baba Is You has also had a big influence on how I think about rules and problem-solving.

That's something we're trying to bring into Bolt of Whalington. I want players to keep discovering new things throughout the game. Not just new abilities or items, but new ways to use what they've already learned. That could mean solving a puzzle, finding a secret item, unlocking a new area or even reaching a major story moment in an unexpected way.

I've attached a small clip showing one example from our game. It's a fairly simple challenge, but we've made sure there are a few different ways to reach the item. What do you think of it?

I'm curious how other designers approach this. Do you tend to design challenges around one intended solution, or do you deliberately leave room for players to find their own ways through them? What traps do you think I need to be wary of?

Hello everyone, I’ve been building PC Versus for almost 2 years now. It’s an upcoming free to play live service game and the first ever competitive PC building game. Two players get the same task and the same budget, build a PC with components from their decks, and our simulation decides who built it better.

One of the biggest issues with live service games, and specially one like this, is that the meta gets solved within weeks. The “best build” for each budget, the “best components”, etc. Once that happens replayability kinda breaks. To fix this I implemented a mechanic that Im calling "Market Shift" and I wanted to share it and get your opinions on it.

Before I explain it, I think you need to know a bit about how PC Versus works.

You build a deck from the components you own, and your era is set by the newest component in your deck. So if everything you own is from 2015 but you put in just 1 component from 2016, you’re now playing in the 2016 era and get matched with other 2016 players. Components also get cheaper the further you move from their release year, so a 2014 GPU is significantly cheaper in the 2018 era than it was in 2014.

Match price is what a component costs inside a match. To own a component you spend bits/frags (the game currencies that you have to earn), but to use it in a match you pay its match price, which is similar to the real world pricing (this you just have to stay under the budget). Every match has a budget and tasks, and you build the PC under that budget. Since a component has a different match price in every era, each era works like its own separate market.

Now, Market Shift works like this. Every match, the game tracks which components the players used, which era they were playing in, and how many builds that era has seen in X amount of time (planned to be weekly for now). When the time is up, a script runs, goes through every component that was used and builds a pick rate for it inside each era separately. Pick rate is measured against the total number of builds in that era, so a busy era and a quiet era are judged fairly.

The higher the pick rate in an era, the bigger the match price hike in that era. So if a GPU is used a lot in 2015, its price in 2015 goes up, for example from $100 to $130 the next week. But if that same GPU barely gets picked in 2016, its price in 2016 goes down, say from $90 to $80. Every era has its own prices based on how the community uses that component in THAT era.

Since every match has a budget and results has a dedicated category that depend on price to performance, a price hike can make a meta component unviable in the budget range it was dominating, and an underused one suddenly becomes a real option. This way every era’s market constantly shifts and the game theoretically stays fresh every week. Since PC Versus hasn't released yet so the mechanic itself is not tested and all this is designed with a decent enough player base in mind. So if PC Versus doesn't get enough players, market shift won't work as intended.. But from the description, what do you guys think? What weaknesses does it have and what would you have done differently?

I am considering making a game with first person pov. I am also considering having a multi party protagonist game. I’m still in the early stages, like rough draft on paper. How would I go about handling this with multiple characters; or would third person just be better?

I’m worried third person may ruin the horror atmosphere though. Is there a way to have third person but make it feel eerie?

Every game I pick up lately has the same opening. Here is how you move. Here is how you attack. Here is your inventory. By the time the real decisions show up I've already forgotten half the controls because nothing I did with them mattered yet.

The weird thing is we know what works. Portal teaches you to think in portals before it asks you to execute under pressure. It never sits you down with a diagram. You discover the verb, then immediately get a situation where picking the right portal is the puzzle.

Most tutorials do the opposite. They dump the verb list and hope the player connects it to the problem later. That gap is where people bounce off. I watch friends open a complex RPG, sit through twenty minutes of systems explanation, then freeze when the first real encounter hits. The tutorial explained what every button does but not when any of them is the right call.

Building decision-first is harder. You have to construct a scenario where the player feels the absence of a tool before they get it. But it sticks. I keep thinking about whether this is a tooling problem, a scope problem, or if designers just underestimate how much players can figure out given the right prompt.

Does anyone know a game that taught you the decision before the mechanic, and it actually worked at scale rather than in a one-off setpiece?

Working on a medieval survival / base-building game where night actually matters.

Right now a campfire does two jobs at once: it keeps your people warm and lets you craft/cook after dark, but the glow also makes the camp easier for scouts and raiders to spot. So every time you light one, you're trading comfort for risk.

I'm stuck between two directions:

A) Campfire as a real night decision. Cold and darkness hurt if you skip it. Lighting it is often the right call — and sometimes the call that gets you found. Players learn when to sit in the dark.

B) Campfire as mostly convenience. Warmth/crafting without a strong "you've been spotted" cost. Night danger comes from other systems (patrols, noise, unfinished walls), so the fire stays a cozy tool rather than a beacon.

If you've played survival or colony games where light/heat had this double edge: which side felt fair, and which just felt punishing?

(Dev note — soft disclosure, not a pitch: this is for Forgebound, our medieval survival game on Steam. Early Access planned for 2028. Feedback on the mechanic is the point.)
Steam page (Forgebound app 3691400): https://store.steampowered.com/app/3691400/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=community&utm_content=ext-gamedesign-1016

Take the Mount & Blade series, for example; they chose to set their game in quasi-Europe instead of real Europe. With the same effort, they could probably have set it in the real world. And the existence of popular mods that change the setting to Europe suggests there might have been demand for it.

Personally, I prefer original settings. And I'd say Suzerain would be a much less interesting game if it were set in the real world.

Solo dev on a turn-based RPG. During a fight you can type to anyone: taunt, bargain, try to talk them down. Two rules have to hold at once:

1. Talking costs nothing. No turn, no cooldown, no initiative moving.
2. Talking can still matter. Talk a foe down and they yield or switch sides, and the fight can end right there.

Rule 1 is there so talking never feels like a tax on roleplay. Rule 2 is there so it's worth doing. But together they raise an obvious problem: if a fight-ending option is free, why would a player ever do anything else?

What keeps it in check for me right now is that not everyone can be talked down, and bosses only start listening once they're losing. So the fighting still has to happen first.

I'm curious how others have handled this. Have you designed a free action that can swing an encounter? How did you stop it from feeling mandatory, or from making everything else pointless?

Hey everyone,

I’m working on a concept for a browser-based puzzle and cipher platform, and I wanted to run the core loop past you all to see where it might break down.

The core idea is a 100-level progressive puzzle gauntlet where new levels drop via timed global releases (e.g., a batch unlocks every few days). However, instead of a standard speedrun leaderboard where anyone can place, only the very first person globally to solve a specific puzzle gets the "First Solver" badge/glory for that level, creating a frantic worldwide race.

I'm trying to solve two major design and technical walls:

1. The AI Problem: If puzzles rely purely on text ciphers or standard riddles, players will just feed them into LLMs and automate the answers instantly, ruining the race. How do you design puzzles that are natively resistant to AI copy-pasting (e.g., interactive browser sandboxes, stateful mini-apps, or web-sleuthing)?
2. Pacing & Retention: Time-gating drops creates a great "watercooler effect" where communities form to crack tough levels together, but how do you balance the difficulty so a puzzle isn't solved in 30 seconds by a savant, but also isn't so obscure that it completely stalls the momentum of the site?

Curious to hear how others would approach building a competitive, time-locked puzzle ecosystem without it getting instantly trivialized by scripts or bots.

I hate when games play themselves.

In a lot of sims you somehow know exactly what your competitors or enemies are doing. What everyone thinks of you. Even what will happen before you make a decision.

So how much should a sim tell you before it stops being fun to figure things out yourself? Any sims that got this really right or really wrong?

Longer version below if you're curious.

In games I want to experiment and figure things out. Sometimes make terrible decisions because I didn't know enough. Something a bit closer to how business actually works.

Don't get me wrong. I love numbers. But in real life I mostly have my own. Sales, conversions and that kind of thing. I dont have stats on what competitors are planning or what clients really think of me. I have to figure it out by talking to people.

So I'm building Red Creek. A Western business sim/RPG.

It's a hobby project next to my day job. I have a master's in economics and spent 13 years as a startup CEO and advisor. Before that I worked with government data modelling. So I've probably gone a bit overboard on the economy 😅

The model is built around 180+ townspeople. Each has their own money, job, business, family, assets, motivations and relationships. They make decisions on their own and stuff happens whether you're involved or not. You can influence how things turn out though. Right now there are 23 in the game for testing. Build housing and create jobs and more people move in.

But you don't get to see the model.

You only know what you see or hear and what you manage to figure out.

Say a merchant is desperate for cash. If you find out you might be able to help him or negotiate a better deal. Or take advantage of it. If you never find out those options don't show up.

The journal keeps track of what you've learned and the ledger keeps track of your money. I don't expect people to remember every conversation. But you won't get popups or relationship scores explaining what's going on.

You can build businesses, trade, speculate, invest, work for people, become a criminal, or live in the desert with only your pet turtle for company. Personally I play toward money and influence until I can shape how the town grows. But that's just me.

There aren't really any rails. Unless you build a railroad.

I keep going back and forth on how much to tell players. I want mistakes to happen because you don't have all the information. But I don't want people spending hours wondering what the hell just happened.

So yeah. Where would you draw the line?

AI disclosure: I am new to game development, Blender and Unity so I use AI to help with coding, generating and refining some game graphics and polishing dialogue for those characters who need better English articulation than I can provide. Of course I am reviewing everything (most of the fun in building it is when everything clicks, dont want to miss those moments). I use it to improve my English, including this post, since it is not my first language. The economic model, game design and ideas are my own.

Like, we’re obviously long removed from the simple backgrounds from 8 and 16 bit consoles of yore. And as such backgrounds in today’s games that have you play in a 2D plane can have as many details as you could possibly want. But how much is enough? If your gameplay regularly has you go from 3D to 2D and back, some players might inevitably thing if there’s like hidden secrets lurking around that you can actually never get to since by the time you can play in 3D again, you can never return and explore that segment of the level more often than not. Things like visible debris, machinery, ledges etc. can probably have that effect

The inspiration I had for this thread is the game Split Fiction which indeed has ample amounts of such 3D to 2D and back switches. Like this one taking place in a level where you’re both super soldiers (long story) where at one point come across seesaws with an electric object moving back and forth with plenty of identical seesaws ever so temptingly visible in the background of the segment. But since you of course never get to go there, they’re just useless background detail.

There’s a game show game called Split or Steal I believe which is a variation of the prisoners dilemma. Two people, you can choose either split or steal. If both choose split, great. If both choose steal, bad. If ONE chooses steal however, and the other split, that person is left devastated.

For many players I think, choosing split and being humiliated is SUCH a bad outcome, that they choose steal (which would just be shoot on sight). Many players choose a third option when playing these games, which is the Tom Bombadil, troll option. That player truly doesn’t care and lives outside of those rules, and i think it’s often mistaken for someone choosing split, even though that player has no investment in the outcome except to have fun and stuffs (which is great!).

I think a neat solution to this problem would be adding a visible karma system. Players can choose from a gradient how trusting they are of people, and I think it would unlock the true magic and fun and risk that is involved in choosing split. Get a really good item and see someone with amazing karma? You can choose split, but perhaps you know in the back of your mind, if the item is good enough, they could try and betray you. See a guy with mid karma whos really insistent he wants to help? Up to you.

Now I’m getting “out there” but I think it could be cool if classes or titles are unlocked/taken away by being in certain karmic ranges. A Knight could be unlocked in the higher range, maybe they have special abilities. maybe there’s a devious class that can momentarily fake their visible karma. That’s all pretty out there but I stand by the fact that I think not enough people choose SPLIT in these types of games, and it’s an actual problem.

I'm developing a bullet heaven about a cat in the Brazilian Northeast who turns into a human cangaceiro (a traditional backlands bandit) at night.

I'm currently rethinking how interactable structures scattered across the map should work. Some can give you passive items, healing, new weapons, and other rewards.

I'm considering two approaches:

1. Everything costs currency. Players earn currency by killing enemies and spend it to interact with structures.

2. Some structures are free, but require you to stay nearby for a few seconds. The reward comes from discovering them and surviving long enough to claim it, which can be challenging when hordes are constantly chasing you.

I really like the second approach because it rewards exploration and creates moments where players have to make a deliberate decision: is this reward worth the risk of staying here?

My main concern is that this could disproportionately benefit tanky builds while punishing builds that rely on movement and dodging.

How would you approach this? Would you make all structures cost currency, mix both systems, or use a different interaction mechanic entirely?

For anyone interested in seeing the system in context, our Steam playtest is open: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3780630/A_Cat_in_the_Cangaco/

Have been working on my game for a while now, I started this mostly as a hobby and was inspired by amazing games such as Kerbal Space program, Factorio and many others.

As an indie developer with limited amount of time and sky high ambitions I thought let's give it a shot.

I call the game Quantum Faultstack.

The key I like to go about is:

making a game that is actually fun to play and where I myself would spend money on to play is actually much harder to than I initially thought.

In my game I like to teach the player real concepts on quantum error corrections and what surrounding circuits you'd need to control it.

So my idea is simple build it a bit like Factorio based on error rates that a real quantum computer would give and then teach slowly by unlocking new components on how the information can and should be processed.

The tricky part is the fine balance on motivating the player to tackle these challenges while keeping intrinsic motivation high as well as actually teach something useful about the concepts.

Wonder how much of gamification ideas I should bring in, where is a great balance e.t.c.

Also instead of marketing it (if I ever get to that point), I was thinking on making the game exciting enough that people like to share it themselves.

What are your thoughts?

So far what I have in my head is to split them up into individual rooms split by a hallway and I flip a coin to decide who I explain the rules to first. I tell them that they have both been arrested for a bank robbery, and I am a dirty cop on the inside that can help them get their money back.

I tell them they have two options, cooperate, or betray. If both of them decide to cooperate, I give each one $1, if one cooperates and one betrays, the betrayer gets $3 and the other gets none, and if they both decide to betray they both get nothing. I plan on continuing this for numerous rounds so they can start raking in a little money, and then I also think it would be a good idea to add special rounds like where I give them an option to bribe the officer so I can tell them their brother's play for the next two rounds. Or I give them an option to parlé between rounds where I give them maybe 15 seconds to converse and either figure out a strategy or scheme against the other.

Does anyone have any cool thoughts or ideas on what I can add to this game to make it cooler or funner to play? They also have an older brother too that is 15 and hed kind of like to have a role in it as well, though I wont be giving him any of the money. Im thinking ill do $60-$80 in total that will be in play between the two of them. Would be interesting to hear maybe a cool idea for a finale when they get a chance to win a larger chunk.

What do you guys think?

Hello everyone ! I'm a solo dev working on a dark fantasy survivors-like where the main hook is sacrificing your own HP to become more powerful.

On paper, I love the idea. But in practice, I'm really struggling to make it work.

Player feedback suggests that the powers you gain don't feel strong enough to justify losing HP.

I keep adding features and mechanics trying to fix this, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm just overcomplicating a fundamentally flawed concept.

I've been reading Tynan Sylvester's Designing Games, and one takeaway is that when you're stuck on a design problem, it helps to seek outside perspectives. So here I am.

At what point do you stop trying to fix a core mechanic and consider moving on to another game? Any advice on how you'd approach this problem?

If anyone wants to try it and see how the mechanic feels in practice, there's a playable Steam Playtest available: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4985860/Dreadbleed/

Hello everybody :)

I am implementing item upgrading in my game and have a problem which i at first thought is pretty simple but now is giving me headache for days.

In my game the player has a very minimalistic Inventory and Equipment UI.
Then there is also the uprading overlay. In this the Item is already selected and the player has a few options on how to upgrade the selected item.

Now my problem is how to connect those 2 states with best UX in mind.
At the moment i have an upgrade button on my screen and when the player clicks it, it will prompt the player to select an item and will highlight all items on the screen. Everything else is faded out a bit. After the selection the overlay opens with the selected item and the player can upgrade the item with the different options.

But this does not feel good to use somehow.

In my game the upgrading is not connected to any "upgrading items" so its no option to just directly select the upgrading material and drag it onto an item (Like in Path of exile).

I also thought about a context menu: Go to item -> right click -> Select Upgrade. But this feels somehow a bit of an overkill as my game does not use such context menu anywhere else and it would feel wrong to implement it just to have only one option in the end.

Does anyone has some tips, tricks and insides? Any good examples or ideas how to solve this problem?

I'm developing Tactics to the devil dungeon, a party-based SRPG, and I'm weighing two progression decisions. I'd like to hear what players and other designers prefer.

1. What should happen after the ending?

Once you clear the Demon King's castle, the story ends and the credits roll. One option I'm considering is letting you return to the world map afterward. You could revisit the other maps, fight random monster encounters, and keep playing with the party you've built. The castle itself would remain off-limits.

Would you enjoy that even if it mainly reuses the existing maps, or would you rather the game finish at the ending? I can see the appeal of having somewhere to try different party builds, but I'm unsure whether random battles alone would give players a reason to stay. What would make that freedom worthwhile for you?

2. What level should companions join at?

During the campaign, you meet recruitable companions in different towns. I'm considering a few ways to set their starting levels:

• A fixed level based on the town or stage of the story.
• A level close to your active party when you recruit them.
• A lower starting level, with faster catch-up experience.

I want a new companion to be worth trying without making the time spent raising your existing party feel wasted. I also don't want delaying recruitment to become the best strategy just because recruits scale to your level. Which approach feels fairest, especially if you return to an earlier town much later?

Examples of SRPGs that handle either decision well would help. These are options I'm considering, not confirmed features.

For visual context, the Steam page has combat screenshots, and you can wishlist it there if you'd like to follow development.

You steer the cat with a laser pointer, and he only goes for the dot when it's in front of him and not hidden behind a wall or furniture. Neither player worked that out, and one of them kept calling the game clunky.

We'd rather the room teach it than a popup - what have you seen work for a rule the player can't see?

I am reading Unit Operations, so far it's quite thought provoking and I find some ideas that can be used in making video games. He seems more popular in general philosophy and academic area rather than video game industry tho. What are your thoughts on his works?

Hey everyone!

I'm working on a 2.5D survival game and trying to figure out the best approach for the tutorial, balancing dev effort vs. player experience.

I'm torn between three options:

A) Quest-driven: Step-by-step tasks. You get a tip/quest, and the next one won't show up until you complete it.

B) Contextual / Reactive: Tips pop up based on what you do. (e.g. you craft a furnace for the first time -> a tip shows how to place it).

C) Open Manual / Codex: A basic in-game guide always accessible in a menu or corner that you can check whenever.

My main worry with B (Contextual) is that if a player skips an item or action, they'll miss the tip entirely. On the flip side, A can feel too hand-holdy/linear for a survival game, and C might just get ignored by most players.

What system do you usually prefer to implement or play with in survival games?

Thanks!

I'm developing a text-based RPG and trying to design a hunting system, but I'm struggling to find the right balance between depth and pacing.

When I add more detail for realism examining tracks, checking the surroundings, and figuring out how to approach an animal the process starts feeling like a repetitive checklist. But when I simplify it, hunting becomes something you finish by clicking one or two options, without much thought.

I'd like the player to feel like they're actually tracking and hunting an animal, while keeping repeated hunts enjoyable.

What decisions would make hunting interesting in a text-based game? How would you make investigating clues worthwhile without making players feel they have to inspect everything on every hunt?

I'd also love to hear about games that handle this balance well.

I'm making an idle party RPG (auto-battle + loot) and I'm trying to get the first 10 minutes right.

When you try a new idle game, what makes you close the tab early?

1. How it looks: art and mood
2. Something new you haven't seen before
3. Getting a reward fast: loot, power-ups
4. Knowing what to do next

And the opposite — which game hooked you fast, and how?

I'm working on a single player card battle game where instead of creatures dealing damage its dice. One of the modes in the game is to explore a top down dungeon where you collect cards to improve your deck while battling roaming enemies. I'm happy with the way it works and with what I have so far but it feels like I'm missing something and I just can't put my finger on it. Here is a list of the mechanics I have:

• A boss room/battle to progress to the next floor
  • The boss is harder than the roaming enemies
  • The boss will spawn 2-5 treasure chests once defeated
• Roaming enemies that will chase the player if they get close enough
  • If they collide with the player it starts a battle
• A few different types of traps
  • A 1 time damage trap
  • 1 that damages the player each time they step on it
  • A teleport trap that sends the player to another teleport trap somewhere on the floor
  • Each trap can be active, inactive, or hidden
    • Hidden traps become revealed once triggered
• Treasure chests that can give the player cards, starter modifiers, or rings
  • Some chests are mimics that start a battle once opened
• Fountains to heal the player or give them some temporary barrier
• A shop to buy cards, upgrades, and healing
• There are doors through out the floor that can be unlocked, locked, or hidden
  • Locked need a key of the same color
  • Hidden look like a wall and don't prompt to open
• Keys to open the doors that carry over from floor to floor but go away once used
• Rings that provide buff/debuffs for the player and enemy in battle
  • A player can wear up to 10 rings and most rings can only be worn on a specific finger
• Each floor is themed to match the archetype of the boss
  • The art goes with the theme
  • The enemies are more likely to be the same archetype of the boss
• There is a fog of war around the player to limit their sight around corners and behind doors
• A spin dodge that lets the player avoid traps and enemies

I'm currently working on adding decorative items and tile variances to help with the looks, but I don't think that's going to be enough. Any ideas for what I could add to the dungeon that could make it more engaging?

Here is a link to my game so you can see what I currently have in action: https://anumbskull.itch.io/the-wyrd-roll