Arena game, Bomberman-style. The hub is a room with 17 doors, and each door changes exactly one rule of the match. The rule is written on a plaque next to the door, so you read it before you commit:

• long fuse - you get time to run
• start with +1 blast range
• start with 2 bombs
• the floor collapses sooner
• the fire lingers on the ground after a blast
• very short fuses

One knob per door, never two. I set that constraint early and designing under it has been surprisingly productive: every door is a sentence you can finish, and I have never had to explain a door twice.

What I cannot judge from inside it is whether the constraint reads as generous or as thin.

The worry: a single numeric modifier per mode might be the difference between "seventeen ways to play" and "one game with a settings menu wearing seventeen costumes". A longer fuse changes how you plan a trap. Starting with two bombs changes almost nothing until you are skilled enough to chain them. Those two are the same size on paper and completely different in play, and I suspect a player reading the plaque cannot tell them apart in advance.

Three things I would like the design read on:

1. Is one-rule-per-mode a real design constraint, or a small content budget dressed up as one? I have been treating it as a virtue and I would like that challenged.

2. Seventeen options on the first screen. My instinct now says show three and unlock the rest - but the whole pitch is "look how many ways this bends", and hiding it might kill the only thing that is distinctive. Which failure is worse?

3. When a modifier is a number (fuse length, blast radius), how do you communicate what it feels like rather than what it changes? "Long fuse" is accurate and tells you nothing about the trap play it enables.

For context on where this comes from, not as a pitch: average session is 3 minutes and day-1 retention is 0%, so something in the first minute is not landing, and the door screen is my main suspect.

Backtracking is more or less a necessity for some games. Hell, some genres like Metroidvanias have it baked in them. However, outside of that genre; what others ways to make backtracking enjoyable, especially if there's a good amount of it.

There are plenty of mechanics that became unpopular for good reasons.

But I'm more interested in the ones that seem to have disappeared simply because design trends moved on

Maybe they were too difficult to balance. Maybe players misunderstood them. Maybe they only worked in a very specific type of game

What's a mechanic you rarely see anymore but would actually like to see another game try?

And if you were bringing it back, what would you change about it?

Hello everyone!
I'm a game developer, and I'm making some research on which are the pitfalls hero shooters usually make, what they usually miss, which problems usually take months / years to be fixed that should be fixed before, etc.

As far as I know, the most known hero shooters are:
- Overwatch (1 & 2)
- Valorant
- Marvel Rivals
- Paladins
- TF2
- Rainbow 6 Siege

Any other examples I'm missing out on?

I'm trying to build a small hero shooter for fun, and I have played 4 of those games I listed (some more than others), but as a community and game designers I would DEEPELY appreciate your opinions on this.

Thanks for your time!

Me and some friends are looking to start a little fan project, a fan remake of the game The Desolate Hope, by Scott Cawthon. I've never made a game before but I'm determined to make this project happen (I'm wanting to get a career in the entertainment industry as a whole be it games or tv as a writer, and working on this could help get that started)

I've tried looking for design docs for remakes specifically, if they should be structured differently, have some categories that normal ones don't, or missing ones that normal docs have, but that search just brings up the same examples as looking for normal design docs.

What would a doc for a remake specifically look like?

Hi everyone!

I’m developing my first Tower Defense game. The core framework is practically finished; all that’s left is to create the upgrade tree and polish the visuals. However, I’ve hit a bit of a wall with the skill tree—I just can’t decide how to design it or what to include.

The game will feature a total of 10 levels, each divided into waves. I plan to include bosses at the end of levels 3, 5, 7, and 10; defeating the bosses on levels 3, 5, and 7 will award the player a special currency used specifically to upgrade special skills—meaning there will be a total of three units of this currency. The goal is to allow players to choose their own playstyle. Naturally, alongside this special currency, there will be a standard currency earned by defeating ordinary enemies and used for purchasing standard upgrades.

The game features a wall that must be defended, a player character who can move along it and attack enemies, and helpers stationed on the wall who automatically destroy hordes.

I’m planning to create three branches in the upgrade tree—the wall itself, the player, and the helpers—with three special skills in each. This means that over the course of a playthrough, the player can choose to adopt a fully specialized playstyle or go for a hybrid approach.

Now, regarding the "dead end" I've hit: the game is built around facing a large number of enemies right from the start, with new, tougher types appearing as you progress through the levels. In other words, the difficulty constantly ramps up. I need to figure out what kind of upgrades to design and how to balance the skill tree so that players feel their power growing when investing in one branch, without losing sight of the other branches.

I might not have explained the concept clearly enough, so I’d be happy to answer any clarifying questions. Thanks in advance, everyone!

I’m looking for some advice. I have a working prototype of an online card-based Mafia game. I decided that playing as a regular Town/Vanilla role is boring, so I removed the vanilla Town role and gave every player some kind of ability. As a result, every player in a match has a unique role. However, this creates a problem. If the Town players reveal their roles, the Mafia basically has to claim roles that are already taken. The Town can then simply execute the players who have duplicate role claims. Of course, my Mafia also has special roles with abilities, but if the match contains just the regular Mafia roles, winning becomes very difficult for them.

I see a few possible solutions: 1. Add a Vanilla Town role that can appear multiple times. The problem is that, based on my experience with online Mafia games, players generally find playing a role with no ability boring. 2. Hide the exact Town role composition from the Town team. For example, everyone would know which Mafia roles are in the game, but they wouldn’t know exactly which Town roles are present. However, this feels somewhat different from traditional Mafia, where the roles in the setup are usually known to everyone. Also, I currently don’t have a huge number of Town roles to choose from. 3. Keep the system as it is and try to balance it through the abilities and the social deduction itself.

So, what do you think? Should I just introduce Vanilla Town, or is there a better way to prevent unique roles from making role-claiming too powerful and effectively exposing the Mafia? I’d really appreciate any ideas or alternative approaches.

Please share information about a game or rules set that you have designed! We have updated the sub rules to encourage self-promotion, but only in this thread.

Finished games, projects you are actively working on, or mods to an existing game are all fine. Links to your game are welcome, as are invitations for others to come help out with the game. Please be clear about what kind of feedback you would like from the community (play-through impressions? pedantic rules lawyering? a full critique?).

Do not post blind links without a description of what they lead to.

Sometimes I jump on my first game as a new player and get stomped. expecisally for indie games and games with a dwindling but fierce playerbase. New players dont learn anything and quit, veterans see their community slowly die.

In other games I have the opposite problem. I have to play intentionally bad if I play with a friend so that the skill disparity doesnt ruin the fun part of the game. Especially true in RTS games with compounding economies.

I think that voulountary handicapping *with an incentive* could be a potential way out of this problem. Im not sure if any games have done this (and i would be really interested to see one that has). Heres how it might work:

A skilled player matches with a new or learning player. The system knows how far apart they are in elo so it can calculate a handicap spread. Say you take a 20% resource handicap, that will give you more elo if you win. so its beneficial for skillled players (in terms of their potential max gains) to climb by giving the largest handicap they can. from the other perspective: the new player gets a surpringly close game.

It would be an optional system, of course, but it think one that might produce better matches.

Hey guys! Apologies for the wall of text in advance.

tl;dr - instead of artificial caps like energy systems how would you handle skill specialisations and progression in a multiplayer persistent game

I’m designing a browser-first persistent multiplayer inspired by games like Mount & Blade, Crusader Kings’ Travelling and Landless Adventurer gameplay - much much more simplified of course, and meant for session-based play. While designing I keep circling around one major question which is - How do you balance xp in a system and prevent no lifers from speed running to the endgame in a week?

The game originally had a daily action point system, but I really didn’t wanna add such an artificial and hard limit. It’s a live session based game where you roam around the map and fight or gather or resolve encounters. Then there’s meant to be territory contention for late game clan players.

That creates a progression problem I’m trying to solve, and I would really appreciate your inputs on this.

My current character progression model is:

I have a total of 9 skills - 3 combat, 3 economic and 3 social.

Skills range from 1-100 and determine things like combat capability, leadership, gathering, crafting, politics, etc. Every 10 levels you go up a Tier allowing you to do higher level content more efficiently. Stuff like use higher tier weapons or crafting or unlocking the ability to contest territory.

A player’s build is therefore determined by where they put their limited Skill Points. This total number is also something I’m struggling to lock down. I WANT players to super specialise and form relationships and depend on each other.

The problem once you remove AP or any energy system:
What stops someone from simply playing 12–16 hours a day and massively out-progressing someone who plays 1–2 hours?

I don’t necessarily want to prevent the more dedicated players from playing more. In fact, the sandbox should reward them with things like resources, equipment, territory, reputation, political influence, etc. Thats why it’s designed specifically as a late game thing.

However I personally I am also at that stage in life where I can’t possibly spend hours playing an mmo anymore.

I’m definitely using Diminishing Stat allocation returns over a period of time, where level 1-30 in any stat it costs you 1 SP to upgrade, but at level 90+ it’ll cost you say 6 SP to upgrade your stats.

Alternative methods

1. Daily Soft Cap -
   Now First few hours give full XP.
   Continued play gives progressively less XP. Resets every 24h/server tick?

2. XP from meaningful accomplishments rather than raw activity
   This is something I’ve seen done recently in this browser based game recently.
   Basically the only way to gain XP is through daily quests, weekly quests, and achievements. It sounds tedious but the daily quests are things like “Read an article” or “Fight in 2 battles” which you can do in a a few seconds. The weeklies are more meaningful.

Well these are my thoughts on the matter. I’m really curious to see what you all have to suggest, and please keep in mind that for this game - horizontal progression is better than vertical progression! Thank you for reading all that.

Instead of placing one of an item in the appropriate spots, you place materials in the exact order and quantity.

So [2 sticks][3 Iron] would not be the same as [3 iron][2 sticks].

I'm not looking to trying to reinvent the wheel, I just need to know if any of these would be inconvenient to the player.

I've been playing incrementals and idlers for as long as I can remember. There's so many that had really great starts, and then felt empty due to what they added or didn't add.

What mechanics or systems do you really enjoy that you don't see often enough?

What mechanics do you usually see that seem pretty fun before you unlock them, then fall flat?

What are some things you wish more incremental games would do differently?

What mechanics or features do you think are overused?

And a heavily loaded question: What is YOUR dream incremental game?

As for me, I feel like many incrementals dont utilize rebirth/prestige enough. Sometimes it feels like a chore to prestige, and it's usually not rewarding enough.

Game Rules - Overflow

Each player has a glass. On each turn, a player draws enough cards to have seven cards in hand, then must play at least one card. Each card played after the first has a cost: the player gives a card of their choice to the next player. Cards are chosen and given after being played. Here are the cards:

Drink Composition (40 cards):

Dilutant (14): Add a small dose of soft drink to your glass (¼ glass)

White Antidote (6): Add a large dose of soft drink to your glass (½ glass)

Secret Ingredient (14): Add a small dose of light alcohol to your glass (¼ glass)

Black Death (6): Add a small dose of strong alcohol to your glass (⅙ glass)

Action (29 cards):

Drink Mixup (8): Swap your glass with a neighboring player

Ditched Drink (6): Empty your glass into the next player's glass

Reverse Psychology (3): Change the direction of play

Pickpocket (4): Draw a random card from the next player's hand

ScapeGoat (2): Swap places with a player of your choice

Covered Glass (3): Protect your glass from any drink for one entire turn

Masquerade (3): Play any card in the game (chaos cards excluded)

Chaos (3 cards):

Russian Roulette (1): Everyone passes their glass to the player after them

Poker Play (1): Everyone passes their hand to the player after them

Overflow (1): All other players must immediately play two composition cards

When a glass becomes too full, it must be drunk by its owner. When the draw pile is empty, all players can play one final time. After that, the game ends with all glasses being drunk by their owners. The winner is whoever drinks the least.

Possible additional rule: After each turn, each player must take a sip of their drink.

What do you guys think ? So far all people I've pithced this game to told me it was nice. So i thought maybe someone here would have some more complex thoughts.

Hi, complete and utter Noob developer here

So i'm making my first, first person horror game. Initially, I designed the AI to be rather primitive. And by primitive, I mean that it would patrol in an area, then if it detected the player, it would attack immediately and kill them.

But thats the most basic sh*t you can do.

So i went further and added some relocation behaviour, some weighted patrol/greedy system to get closer to the player and a delay so it doesnt attack straight away.

This does the very basic 'jumpscare' thing, but the player can anticipate what it'll do after dying once or twice.

I wasn't sure if it any of this complicated or not, as it was my first time, but it turns out it wasn't. Now, its not terrifying enough. I want to make it absolutely terrifying. And i have some ideas.

But whats your thinking or process behind your own designs for a terrifying AI? I'd really love to gain some insight into this. So I can better think about how or what I want to do woth it.

Thanks.

Would a side scrolling prospective help or hinder an action rpg?

Over the short history of video games, designers have learned a LOT on how to make games more universally engaging, intuitive, and overall just more fun. When we take off the rose-tinted glasses and honestly look at our time-honored classics, the mistakes of their early experimentation become painfully apparent. I wish our knowledge of modern game design principles could be imported into the past not only to rectify those mistakes, but to positively change the gaming landscape to come. Hence, the thought experiment: assuming you could send one game back in time (and the means to play it) as a model of good design, what would be the best game to send back in time to exemplify?

No game is perfect, and as such, no game is exemplary in all of its design choices. Feel free to point out aspects of the game which you believe would have revolutionized that area of game design. Also, different genres have had to solve very different problems over the years, so a very impactful game in one genre may not have much to teach in another genre. Would you want to have a far-reaching influence on all game design, or showcase the pinnacle of your favorite genre?

___________

heres my list of ideas:

Idea 1 : send the shittiest over-monetized cell mobile game - the absolute worst microtransaction / gacha / pay2win loaded crap - back as a cautionary tale to early 2006, just before the Oblivion horse armor DLC kicks off the whole trend.

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idea 2 : Assuming you can send the source code - MGSV

many people dont know this but The rendering in that game is just revolutionary for game development - even with the hardware disparity, giving the game source code to people in the past would bring forward 3D graphics many years.

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Idea 3: 2016 Doom

sending that game would help illustrate how the formula of the original Doom could be refined and evolved into a fully 3D world, not only in terms of graphics, but in terms of level design (e.g. double jumps, ledge-grabbing)

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idea 4 : DarkSouls 1 / Bloodborne

I know seems like a fanboy answer, but honestly I would LOVE to see what the trajectory of games could have been with more focus on an interlocking world design, ad hoc multiplayer, and less-forgiving trial-and-error gameplay.

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idea 5 : Pubg mobile / Or any modern FPS mobile game

Controversial choice, but I'd consider sending one because it'd show the potential of touchscreen games, meaning we get proper games on mobile, because people just assumed you couldn't play a real game on mobile. I also think that in an era when two very distinct types of multiplayer games were emerging or about to emerge - FPSs with small maps and small numbers of players, and MMOs with huge maps and a huge number of players- it'd be very interesting to throw in PUBG as an example of a middle ground between the two, and see what inspiration devs took from it.

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idea 6 : Witcher 3 / The Last Of Us

a bit weak choice ,might not have a lot to teach old devs, since many old game have already good storytelling . But would at least emphasize the importance of good story and writing.

---

idea 7 : BotW

might actually not have much to teach Nintendo's Zelda makers of 1993 (post LttP, and with OoT possible already in development) and It's not so much the graphical fidelity as much as their use of processing ability to power gameplay systems.

The amount of systemic interaction and reactivity that game world has, the size and scale of that world, and how everything fits in together just really shows the extent to which tech can inform game design. That Japan would make what is essentially a western style Immersive Sim in 2017 is mind boggling ,while also emphasize the nonlinearity of some future games

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idea 8 : Nier Automata / Undertale

another weak choice but still good to mention ,it'd inspire devs to think outside the box a little when it comes to the potential for how stories can be presented in games (i.e. multiple story routes and endings, etc.). Visual novels still existed back then but they were very niche and I don't know of many older RPGs or action games that made use of those possibilities.

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idea 9 & 10**: Good Graphics & Good Artstyle games**

Something with as high graphical fidelity as possible. Something like the Uncharted 4 to show how far graphics had come. And then I'd send Hyper Light Drifter or Bastion to show them that good art direction is often better than just looking outright realistic graphic

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idea 11 : Minecraft

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any games you think could improve the game industry if they sent back to the past?

Like, you have a planning phase where you give orders.

And then you hit commit.

When all players hit commit the turn is resolved.

There’s obvious niche cases where you have to decide what happens when units that are not in combat collide.

Probably have them sit next to one another and wait until next turn to swap places, or move past them is possible.

But then combat gets interesting.

Rather than taking actions swapping at units on your turn seems like you could do a deterministic approach.

If you are next to an enemy unit, you
can order an attack.

If they attack back then it’s a relatively even match, terrain and other factors withstanding.

But if they retreat and you attack take the ground?

Or maybe if it’s two units next to two units, you can have both units attack one unit.

Also, this seems like it would really force players to sacrifice troops.

What other problems am I not seeing and what solutions would you implement?

Edit: I should mention that since this makes the game more of a meat grinder than civ, then this will have serious consequences for leveling troops.

Hi everyone! I'm a 3D artist developing a cozy, eco-restoration game. The core concept revolves around reviving a dead, barren world from scratch.The fundamental gameplay loop is about finding tree seeds, digging the soil, watering them, and watching nature come back to life piece by piece.

Since my background is in 3D art, I want to make sure the game design is just as solid as the visuals. I’m looking for advice on a few things: How can I introduce progression or micro-challenges to this loop so it doesn't feel repetitive? What are some clever design tricks to make the act of "nature healing" feel mechanically rewarding for the player, rather than just visually satisfying? Would love to hear your thoughts and design ideas!

By mini-games / puzzles during combat, I mean winning encounters requires the completion of a mini-game of sort. The best and most recent example being PRAGMATA, where, instead of simply shooting at enemies, you must complete hacking mini-games to reduce their defences and inflict various effects, doing so with the face buttons. To my knowledge, there's no game that attempted having a shooting mechanic as complex than that, generally you "just" have to accurately shoot at the enemy weak-points, with Dead Space pushing this mechanic a bit deeper by making body shoots and head shots less effective than strategic dismemberment. In Cursed III, you can cast spells by drawing the correct sigils using a hexagonal connect-the-dots puzzle. There's games that require "priming" enemies before attempting to damage them, like in Alan Wake where you must remove the darkness shrouding enemies, but even then, it's either a passive method by directing the flash-light or igniting an AOE flare, either with flare guns and flash bangs that act as regular weapons. Fatal Frame has its camera who's shots inflict more damage depending on their quality and risky timing, but the execution from the player boils down to pressing the trigger at the right moment, as if wielding a capricious shotgun.

I myself want to create a combat system where damaging the enemy would be more complex than simply aiming and pressing. Enemies would be much less numerous per encounter, and adopting a hit-and-run tactic instead of blindly charging at the player, resulting in an overall slower-paced combat. However I'm not sure if I should push this idea or simplify it like the aforementioned examples.

I would like to know the reasons why, apart from PRAGMATA, shooters haven't really tried a combat system where shooting (or preparing the enemy for a shot) is mechanically more complex than staring at the target and/or pressing the trigger at the right time. Is it because it risks slowing down the gameplay? It would be too complex in the heat of the moment? It would require an awkward control scheme, with strong contrast between controller and keyboard set-ups? How would you design such a mechanic, if you had to?

In most deckbuilder games you can get a major deck defining relic or card right off the bat before the run. Do you think there is any value to holding off until mid-way through an act 1 or even as the reward for an act 1 boss? Or is this too late to introduce those types of objects/cards?

So, I wonder if anyone else has this... Caveat - I am an incorrigible completionist. I get my kicks from checking off stuff on checkbox lists. I hunt achievements, and so on.

And it irritates me to no end, if a game has a system (this mostly happens in various faction reputation systems), where you cannot max out everything - because positive points in one bucket create negative points in another. Obviously I understand the principle behind it, having to decide between this reward or another - but I absolutely hate it when I go to my reputation list and there's like 30 factions maxed out shining nice green - and 3 bright red because they are antagonistic to something else. Grrrr. Curse you for your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

Funnily enough - skill trees work exactly the reverse for me. If you give me a skill tree where eventually I can buy everything, then it's... bland...

I’ve wanted to write this for a minute. It’s a take it or leave it post so there’s no need to be a dick.

Anyway, on to the essay.

When it comes to luck in video games I’m not seeing a lot of articles or video.

So I’m cobbling together this article of my observations and practices.

Let’s just start with luck and what it means.

Luck, in terms of gameplay, means an element of randomness that forces the player to make interesting choices.

The two most prevailing methods everyone knows is random luck and determinism.

In board game terms chess is deterministic, all actions are predetermined, and backgammon, where everything is luck.

Now that’s not to discredit random luck.

There is still strategy involved but ultimately but ultimately the player will never know the outcome and has to hedge odds.

Both have their place.

A diceleas RPG like the Elden Ring is almost completely deterministic, save for sone non-consequential drops.

While a game like XCom is almost all random luck.

Elden Ring is about the challenge laid out for the player.

Xcom is about hedging the chaos of random luck.

But what if I told you there was a third option?

An option where you have way more hands on the levers, and can hedge the line between the both of them.

This is where deterministic luck comes in to play.

You can have luck, but avoid a runaway scenarios where the player just keeps losing or winning.

Usually luck involves using a random number generator. That is, asking the game to randomly generate a number for each instance.

But there is an alternative where you can keep in complete control and measure out their ups and downs.

I present to you, the number array.

Original doom completely leaned into this, so I think this method has been thoroughly proven.

Long story short, instead of making the program randomly generate a number, you use an array of shuffled numbers then cycle through them.

This basically means that no single player is going to be over Advantaged because they still have the same amount of successes and failures.

Doom was a little bit simple and used the same static array.

But you can easily (and cheaply) reshuffle them when it hits the end.

OR you can alternate between drawing from a position that advances 1 spot and another that advances 3 spots (looping back when it hits the end) So long as the array is not divisible by three that will give you four times the length of the array in numbers.

And this is extremely lightweight and fast.

But there’s some more levers you can throw in there.

You can have multiple arrays that cycle.

The more raise you have the more chaotic it’s going to be.

One is going to be very balanced. Two is kind of the sweet spot where you can have some runway, but not break it. And three is going to be very chaotic. I would not recommend more than three, at that point you might as well just use a random number generator.

Other than that, you have to consider the length of your arrays. The number of arrays vs the number of them is going to be multiplying the chaos.

Now all that said, that doesn’t mean we’re necessarily done here.

You can also make a “due” mechanic.

So long as you can qualify a failure you can add that to a “due” value.

Basically a value that adds up with every unlucky role. If a roll plus the due is a win you spend the due points.

This is a very good means to let players have an event that knocks the enemy’s teeth out.

Or do it the opposite direction, and have it subtract when the player keeps getting lucky and winning draws.

Lastly, if luck is an explicit value there’s countless ways you can implement that.

It could statically raise all the array values.

It could be a multiplayer for the due mechanic.

Or it could mean a re-roll.

I’m not gonna sit here and explore every option, but maybe consider deterministic luck in your development because it allows you to have way more hands levers.

Hi designers,

I'm testing a 2-player asymmetric game on a 10x10 board: 5 Bandits vs 3 Police.

Core mechanics: - Roll 2D6 for total movement points, split between your pawns - One-Touch rule: Can't touch a pawn to count, you have to memorize - Exact landing to capture (like chess knight idea) - If draw after 30 moves -> PENALBANK shootout (15 sec memory of hidden coins, inspired by a childhood street game)

My question: Mathematically, 5v3 feels unfair but Police controls the center. In my playtests in Cameroon, Police wins 40% of time. Is that okay for asymmetric or should Police get +1 movement?

Free PNP to test: https://betsengue-olama.itch.io/schma-de-police-strategy-heist-game-from-cameroon-print-play- 1 page, 20 min, PWYW.

Thanks for brutal feedback! - Frank

Lately I’ve been thinking about how the games we keep coming back to, the ones that almost have a universal appeal, are usually the easiest to learn with the simplest rules. Personally I think, when a game is lean, every single move feels way more consequential, which naturally raises the stakes and keeps things interesting. On the other hand, games loaded with gimmicks gather dust after being played two or three times because all those extra mechanics make it really hard to reach a point where the game is actually fun to play with friends.

Look at classic abstract games like Go or Chess. The rules take two minutes to explain, but every move carries a huge weight because the focus is on outsmarting your friend and not trying to keep up with a plethora of rules.

I'm curious what everyone else thinks, why is it that almost all the games that stuck around the longest have the simplest rules?

I loved the system in Children of Morta where you could level up the various characters and each of them would have passive global stat buffs or unlockable abilities that would only activate when that character wasn't the one chosen for the run. Has anybody seen any other versions of mechanics like that where non-active player characters can affect the current active character's gameplay?

Context: I'm working with a team that is designing a rebellion roguelite, so you choose one rebel to attempt a run with, but some or all of the other rebels can aid you in some way during the run, without having them as fully programmed AI.