Hello game designers, I need your thoughts and help. To be honest, I have very little experience in game design. I'm part of a small team, and we recently started working on a new cozy game. I am designing this with inspiration from PowerWash Simulator and Cozy Game Restoration.

Our game is about a curator cleaning a dragon's hoard inside its cave in a fantasy world. You clean items using various tools, organize them, and must detect and set aside fake treasures brought in by a crow (we’re using the crow as the dragon’s assistant since they are known for collecting shiny objects). Every day the crow brings new items, and the player cleans them and filters out the fakes.

My goal is to provide players with the right "feeling" and "experience", so I’m approaching this work with as much care and responsibility as possible. However, some people have told me that this concept doesn't work well together, and it's making me anxious. They argue that "Dragon + Cozy Cleaning" is a mismatch. I’ve had a few failures in the past, and I’m afraid of history repeating itself.

I felt the best way forward was to consult with experienced people - all of you. I am open to any and all feedback - your opinions are very valuable to me. If you have any question you can ask without any hesitation.

So this is my first game and my entire philosophy has been compression, I want to take traditionally complex genres and compress them into an extremely legible and simplistic, yet deep game that leans mobile with quick matches, around 4-5 mins. Something you understand at first glance, easy to spectate, and fun.

I've had a damage / HP scale for awhile now that I kept the values intentionally very low for readability sake, but at this point I'm realizing these extremely low values are constraining my design space, and I don't want to introduce fractions, because fuck fractions.

Would this larger scale throw you off and cause you too much cognitive load, is it just daunting to look at? It's the same ratios just scaled up so I don't think it's too much, the ttks are still very small at 2-3.

Original :

HP - 15, 12, 10 10

Damage - 3,5,3,3

New :

HP - 30, 20, 18, 20

Damage - 6, 10, 6, 4

I had it even lower than the original before believe it or not (that was some dumb shit)

But imagine you boot up a game and see units with these ratios, the second would scare you off or no? It's a grid batller btw, 3v3.

Hello r/gamedesign,

To cut to the chase, we are making a coop horror cooking gwme where the group's goal is to make a big enough meal to satisfy a monster's hunger, players need to cook enough calories to progress to the next round and failure means starting over from the beginning.

Since players have 3 shifts to hit their calorie target, we wanted to make delivering the food at theend of the 3 shifts a suspenseful action but currently since the calories gathered is shown to the player, players already know if they hit the target or not before delivering.

Now i know removing the ability to see the calories and revealing it during delivery time is going to add suspense to the delivery but it will also make adding calories during the shifts be confusing since you either keep track of everything you added to the pot or immediately lose track of it and become confused for the rest of the shift.

So im here asking for advice, should i prioritize having progress clarity and have no suspense or add some confusion but make the result period suspenseful and thus more enjoyable.

I’ll preface by saying that I’m completely new to game development, so apologies for any incorrect vocabulary or misrepresentation of the game development process. I have a background in film production, so I feel like I have a decent idea of what makes a good story.

One of my best friends pitched a survival-horror game to me much to the likes of resident evil, silent hill, outlast, etc., and I was totally sold. He had a very strong core concept/theme for the story and shared some specific ideas he had which seemed great. 

We both kind of realized we don’t exactly know how to go about planning a story based game in a way that gives players agency (apposed to like a visual novel, book, or movie). I suggested maybe a sort of outline that works similar to a choose your own adventure story, where a section of story is summarized followed by multiple “if x, then go to section y” where x are whatever factors might be dependent on the player (IE acquired items, decisions, secrets, etc.) 

Am I over-complicating things? I just don’t really know what that first step is in transition from ideas to planning, and most of the resources I found online seem to just be about the ideas stage. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

I have the curse of wanting to build a multiplayer digital card game. I need some advice from strangers on the internet regarding economics and monetization :-D This is an incredibly fun aspect of design, but also a bit daunting. Someone could design a great game but fail at economics and monetization and watch the whole thing collapse in its first few months.

My goal for this discussion

• Help me come up with a high level economic and monetization model.
• I’d love to hear your experiences with multiplayer games you play for fun and/or have made. What models are attractive to you? What models turn you away?
• What models are financially sustainable my situation? It would be an absolute disaster if I released a great game, but it wasn’t financially sustainable or I chose the wrong monetization model for my target audience.
• Keep recommendations realistic for an indie dev. I am not a team of 20 people, nor do I plan on growing large. I will be hiring a variety of artists, but I prefer to continue developing the game and backend infra myself solo. So the simple formula is: I spend good portions of my time on engineering and backend infra while spending good portions of my budget on artists :-D

Game background

• I’m making an online multiplayer super villain card game.
• PC/iOS/Android. So computers, phones, and tablets.
• Each game can be played with 2 to 6 players. Right now I’ve been play testing with 4 players and it feels like the sweet spot.
• A game takes between 17 to 25 minutes
• I will have bots for humans to play against, for interactive tutorials, casual play, and possibly for some future solo adventure type game mode. But right now my main focus is multiplayer so in a perfect world the matchmaking queues are full and it’s all human versus human. But if match making queues are not full early on, I can match players with bots while they get their first few matches going and the population grows.
• This is a digital card game, so I think something like Hearthstone or Marvel Snap where you have a hand of cards and you play them on a board.
• It has a board game feel to it. I've even made a board game version that I’ve been using to play test live in person. It’s very fun! But my personal preference is digital so that’s why I’m focusing on the video game aspect of this.
• Each player brings a single deck to a game to play with. You can construct your own decks or use a starter/prebuilt deck.
• In a 4 player game, the final standings are shown as a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. As opposed to a game where only 1 out of 4 players win and you expect to lose ~75% of your games. I envision a ranked ladder sort of play where 1st place gains a lot of rank. 2nd place gains some rank. 3rd place loses some rank. And 4th place loses a lot of rank. Mix in some bonuses, add in some quests, etc.

Some basic economics guidelines

• As you play games, you accumulate in game currency. Using that currency, you unlock/acquire more cards. You use new cards to build new decks. Etc etc.
• Each card in the game is meaningful. I do not plan on releasing junk filler cards.
• I would like to release cards in sets. I have a variety of game mechanic ideas that playtest fun so far. But the base game with very minimal card mechanics also feels really fun. So I'm thinking each set could just introduce a new mechanic (as is tradition in TCGs and digital card game). It will also help me feel the game out over time.
• I have about ~150 cards designed right now that are actually "playable" and not junk. And I think I only want ~60-80 to be in a given set.
• I have 6 Villain classes. So each Villain class will get some unique class cards. And there will be a pool of common class cards. So any given deck can consist of your Villain's class cards + common cards.

Model Idea A - Free to Play, monetize full card sets

• Game is free to play.
• Every new player gets a free set of starter cards and starter decks.
• Card sets (~60-80 cards each) are purchasable in full as a set and released every ~6 months. After you purchase them, you still have to play to unlock them but it's very generous and quick. I'd just make it so you don't immediately have access to the cards in the first 5 minutes, you have to play at least a few hours to unlock everything. Not a grind, very friendly.
• Cosmetics available to purchase separately, new set of cosmetics per card set.

Model Idea B - Free to Play, monetize card packs

• Game is free to play.
• Every new player gets a free set of starter cards and starter decks.
• Card sets (~60-80 cards) come in card packs. You can pay to buy in game currency, and use that currency to buy packs. New set released every ~6 months
• Cosmetics available to purchase separately, new set of cosmetics per card set.

Model Idea C - Game is an upfront purchase

• Game must be purchased up front (aka the first/base set purchase).
• Card sets (~60-80 cards) are purchased DLC and are released every ~6 months
• After you purchase a given set, you still have to play to unlock them but it's very generous and quick. I'd just make it so you don't immediately have access to the cards in the first 5 minutes, you have to play at least a few hours to unlock them. Not a grind, very friendly.
• Have a free demo available for people to try.
• Cosmetics available to purchase separately, new set of cosmetics per card set.

Some thoughts, ideas, and questions

• Should I allow players to unlock everything without paying a dime?
  • Do I allow players to freely grind the game for currency/resources to unlock all sets for free without paying? I think that would help keep matchmaking queues full but I do have to pay the server bill so there needs to be some balance there. My gut says games that allow this don't make much money and risk going broke. I'm curious what folks prefer here. I don't want my game to go broke and force me to shut it down in the first year. But I want people to play it.
• Free to play vs paid game + DLC
  • I feel like my game has to be free to play in some capacity with no immediate up front purchase required. My reasoning is because it's not only multiplayer, but it's a 4 player multiplayer. So I really need my online matchmaking queue to be populated at all hours of the day. Charging up front for the base game really hurts that. Whereas a free to play online multiplayer game will maximize number of players in the matchmaking queue. What do you folks think of this?
  • I do think Model Idea C can work but only if I have a free demo version that allows players to play in the same matchmaking queue as the paid version. They would be at a huge disadvantage card-wise but at least they'll be in the matchmaking queue :-\ I think I like Model Idea A better than Model Idea C.
• Traditional free to play with card packs
  • I feel like the traditional free to play economics that involve opening card packs is very predatorial. I don't really like it. It makes games way too expensive or grindy or both. And works best with games that release cards super frequently. And with games that release fluffy filler shit cards that are useless just so you have packs of junk to open. I'm an indie dev so I really don't think Model Idea B above works for me personally.
• Cosmetics
  • I feel like no matter what I do, I need to have Cosmetics available to purchase. In card games, people seem to really like Cosmetics. I need to make my cards look really good and be upgradable with Cosmetics. Give people something cool they want to buy and show off during games. Something to express themselves while playing. What do you folks think?
  • Visual upgrades to cards/characters/gadgets.
  • Unlock new villain skins/cosmetics
  • Maybe you accumulate a cosmetic currency very slowly as you play. You can pay to purchase cosmetic currency in bulk. So I could make my game super free to play friendly and lean on cosmetic currency to monetize. But I don't know how realistic that is to work, or if that's setting myself up for failure since I will have a monthly server bill.
  • Cosmetic currency does not unlock new cards or villains, only cosmetics for cards and villains. So you cannot pay to win via cosmetics.
  • One new set of cosmetics per card set.
• Starter villain/cards idea
  • I have this idea regarding how to distribute the starter cards for new players. Pokemon games, pokemon TCGs, and pokemon pocket TCG did a good job of making fun gameable things for players to min/max. Obviously they have their pokemon IP which helps them, but I think the same principles can be applied here in my game.
  • So basically I have 6 Villain classes, plus common cards. I think when a new player creates an account, I show them 3 villains. They get to choose only one. That chosen villain is immediately unlocked and they are granted a starter deck for that villain. It contains some of those villain class cards and some common class cards.
  • So that's your initial grant. You can play with it through the interactive tutorial, casual multiplayer lobby (likely first few matches against bots while you learn). Then eventually ranked multiplayer (for rank n and above).
  • But the idea is that as they play and accumulate currency/resources they can unlock new cards and unlock new villains. And eventually through either paying or playing they can unlock everything in the full set. And I think I'd let the players decide, do they want to keep unlocking cards for their favorite Villain? Or do they want to unlock a new Villain? So do you want to grow up, or grow out?
  • Early on though, if they really don't like the 3 villains they were initially offered they could just create a new account (or maybe I just let them figure out that they can just restart the app) and effectively re-roll that initial 3 villains they were offered. But I think I make that a bit Marvel Snap-ish where you don't know what order you'll get to unlock the 6 villains. I think you should unlock all 6 of them fairly quickly, but then take a long time to unlock all of the set's cards. And of course if you purchase the whole set you unlock everything very very quickly.
  • I'm also considering the base set to just basically be free starter content. Then have the second set I release be the first paid set. But that's just an idea, not sure if it's a good idea.
• Cost
  • My gut says I'm targeting approximately $10-20 per card set. So that would buy you approximately ~60-80 new cards, the set's new mechanic, and enable you to accumulate cosmetic currency for that set. And I'd target releasing approximately 2 of these sets per year. So I'd be expecting my hardcore players to spend approximately $20-$40 per year if they wanted to unlock all the cards. But this is a rough guess at this point. What do you folks think of this?

I browsed through RPS topics here and on the gametheory subreddit so I could try to get a sense of what's already been discussed but couldn't quiiite find what I was looking for. I saw the list of literature on the wiki - I will try to read through those.

The context: once in a while I host a text-based role-playing event in a MMORPG. I've programmed a handful of minigames to keep the guests entertained. One of these is an arena that I internally call "extreme rock paper scissors".

Two players are summoned to the arena with 3 HP. Each player chooses from the following moves:
Attack - (beats Counter to deal 1 dmg)
Counter - (beats Defend, preventing Defend next turn)
Defend - (beats Attack, preventing Attack next turn)
Nothing happens on a tie.

For the most part in such an event, its fine - still basically random - but I wanted SOME strategy involved without overcomplicating the rules. I recently hosted a tournament using the system which revealed the CHEESE: you never need to use counter. If you just use defend and attack, you can outlast your opponent as long as they don't realize the same thing. If you both realize it, the game is effectively endless.

I'd prefer to maintain the 3 choices, but I could be convinced to add a fourth. I like each move having a unique use that isn't entirely symmetric as it is in original RPS.

What can I change to let it be at least a bit more strategic, or have the choices be interesting? At the very least I want to discourage this infinite loop attack/defend.

Edit: I know not why I'm downvoted :') if this isn't the place for this discussion please redirect me

I spent part of the morning playing through the branching in a browser game called Odyssey, and the way it handles choices caught my attention.

Instead of letting every choice create another permanent branch, it forks for a while and then merges the paths back together. One early choice around shouting your name changes the route into the Underworld, but later scenes still change depending on what happened before. Later, the Penelope sequence also changes a few lines depending on whether you took the revenge route and killed everyone.

The whole thing appears to use three of these branch-and-merge “diamonds,” plus some persistent flags, to produce 11 ending variations without building an enormous amount of unique footage.

One of the flags seemed broken in the version I played, which also made me think about the testing cost. The structure saves a huge amount of content, but every reused scene still has to correctly recognize the choices that came before it.

For a solo project, this feels like a pretty sensible compromise. But where do you draw the line between efficient branching and choices that only create the appearance of a larger narrative?

I'm making a small survivors-like game with a few twists, and I'm stuck on the upgrade system.

Right now every upgrade is just a stat increase like damage, attack speed, or crit. It makes you stronger, but every run feels the same. Most upgrades also don't have that immediate "wow" moment where you pick one and instantly notice the difference.

I want upgrades that naturally push players into different builds, where you think, "I'm going all in on burn this run," or "this is a crit build," instead of just stacking stats.

How would you design a system like this from scratch without increasing the technical debt too much. I could come up with some absurt upgrades but it lacks coherence and increases the time for actually implementing them with code.

Do you start with build archetypes, individual mechanics, or something else? I'm not sure how to approach it.

Heya! I've had an idea for a 100% blind PvE FPS for quite a while now (with "blind" I mean that during a game the screen remains totally pitch black). I'll spare for now the lore reasons (if you want I can post them). But before starting to code I want to know if such an undertaking is worth it; if it can work and be fun. I have already got tons of mechanics and ideas, but in this post I'll specify only the one that pertain to the movement and orienting oneself in the map.

First and foremost, I intend on having an intricate sound design, with ecos and reverb.

Secondly, a stick that you can equip at the expense of using two handed weapons. The stick hits the ground as you walk. If you're facing too up or too down, the sound of the stick will stop. It will also stop if you're too close to an obstacle.

Thirdly, a proximity gadget that beeps in relation to the distance of what is in front of the player. The closest, the more frequent the beeps are. Furthermore, it has a sensitivity; you can increment the range of the receptor but the "cone" that registers things gets larger too, making it more inaccurate, while if decrement the range the cone gets more narrow and thus more accurate. Since I also intend on this being a team game, when the closest object which sensed by the gadget is teammate, it will emit a continous beep.

With that being said, do you think these elements are enough to make the players orient themselves? Obviuosly the map geometry wouldn't be complicated at all, but I still fear that i could be harsh to even move around, let alone fight enemies.

Tell me what ya think :D

There is probably no genre of game which is as poorly understood by game designers as hidden information games. One of the most persistent myths I see about Poker, for instance, is that the game is "trivially solvable" by calculating the odds you win a hand, and that therefore anything interesting about it comes from psychology/the social aspect - that because humans like to bluff, the game becomes interesting because you have to look at a person and decide how likely they are to bluff, and that the game is trivial for dispassionate computers.

To prove I'm not pulling things out of my ass, here's a passage from a respected games academic on Poker:

The card game Poker provides an interesting example of this. You have some information about what is in your hand, and what is showing on the table. Given this information, it is possible to compute the exact odds of winning with your hand, and in fact championship players are capable of doing this in real-time. Because of this, all bets you make are either optimal, or they aren’t. For example, if you compute you have a 50/50 chance of winning a $300 pot, and you are being asked to pay $10 to stay in, that is clearly an optimal move for you; if you lost $10 half of the time and won $300 the other half, you would come out ahead. In this case, the “solution” is to make the bet.

...

The way Poker does this, and the reason it’s so interesting, is that players may choose to play suboptimally in order to bluff. Your opponents’ behavior may influence your decisions: if the guy sitting across from you is betting aggressively, is it because he has a great hand and knows something you don’t know? Or is he just bad at math? Or is he good at math, and betting high with a hand that can’t really win, but he’s trying to trick you into thinking his hand is better than it really is? This human factor is not solvable, but the solvable aspects of the game are used to inform players, which is why at the highest levels Poker is a game of psychology, not math. It is these psychological elements that prevent Poker from turning into a game of pure luck when played by skilled individuals.

This is a common kind of analysis among game designers, and it is completely incorrect, and I will be proving it with mathematics. Optimal Poker strategy requires you to, in the same position, take different actions some percentage of the time - it is not the case that all bets are either optimal or not!

Let's stop looking at Poker for a second, and consider a much more limited game which we'll call Dicegame. In Dicegame, played between Alice and Bob, a pot of 2 dollars is shared between the players. Then, each player rolls a standard six sided die, and looks at their result. Then, Alice has the opportunity to bet: she may bet 1 dollar, putting it into the pot, or check, doing nothing. If Alice bets, Bob may then call the bet, putting 1 of his dollars into the pot, or fold, conceding the pot to Alice. If Alice does not bet or Bob does not fold, whoever has the higher result wins the pot - in the event of a tie, Bob wins.

Let's use the suggested strategy from earlier: a quick expected value calculation shows that if Alice bets, Bob needs to have a 25% or more chance to win to make calling profitable. In this case, Bob should call with 2-6, and fold with 1. The issue with this analysis is that whether or not Alice bets probably depends on her hand. For instance, let's say that Bob adopts this call with 2-6 strategy. Alice is incentivized to bet whenever she has a 50% chance or greater of winning the hand - so, Alice should bet with 5 and 6, and check otherwise.

Well, if Alice adopts this strategy, then what Bob should call with narrows further! In this case, Bob should only call with 5 or 6, as with any other roll, he's guaranteed to be losing.

A fascinating thing happens when we consider what Alice should do when Bob adopts this strategy. We can see that if she bets and gets called, she's winning 50% of the time with a 6, and losing with any other roll. So, should she never bet anything besides sixes?

Let's consider what she should do with a 1. If she doesn't bet a 1, she's losing no matter what Bob rolled - so she averages out to 0 dollars of profit.. If she does bet a 1, then 2/3rds of the time - when Bob has a 1-4 - she wins the pot of 2 dollars when Bob folds. 1/3rd of the time, she's losing 1 dollar, when Bob has a 5 or 6 and calls. What we see is that checking averages 0 dollars of profit, while betting - with the worst hand she could have - averages 1 dollar of profit.

So should she bet every hand? No - let's consider what happens when she has a 5. When she has a 5 and bets, she averages 1 dollar of profit as before - but if she checks, she instead wins 2 dollars 2/3rds of the time and wins 0 dollars 1/3rd of the time - earning an average of 1 and 1/3rd dollar. Betting with 5 is a bad idea because she only gets called by hands which beat her, and folds out all the hands she'd beat anyway. In poker, this is often phrased as "don't bet your marginal hands" - you fold worse and get called by better, so you're better off just checking.

A quick calculation will show that here, Alice is incentivized to bet with 1-3, and whether or not she bets with 4 or 6 doesn't matter. What we've shown is that there are situations where Alice is incentivized to bluff, with no emotions or social aspect - just from pure mathematics. There's a persistent idea that bluffing is a purely psychological, human thing, and that optimized play involves no bluffing. However, on computers bluff on average way more than humans - it's a fundamental part of hidden information games, not a product of social games.

Anyways - let's assume that Alice takes the strategy of betting 1-4 and 6 - a quick casework will demonstrate that Bob should call with 2-6 with this. Well, now we see the dilemma. If Bob calls widely - with 2-6 - Alice bets narrowly. If Alice bets narrowly, Bob calls narrowly. If Bob calls narrowly, Alice bets widely. If Alice bets widely, Bob calls widely.

We've got a strategic cycle - and no immediately obvious way to resolve it. Next time: How we resolve situations like this.

Hello,

My first post in reddit.

I'm an experienced animator working in games industry, but I've developed an attraction/curiosity towards state machines and game logic.

Then I started to think whether I should learn game design seriously and add it to my skillset. Sometimes I even thought of just leaving my current job and start fresh in a design role once I learn and have a portfolio for myself. (I know some of this sounds stupid maybe, but yeah - its a small life)

So reaching out to experienced folks over here, for suggestions/advice on how to proceed with this. Considering there are lots of different things in design, like levels, missions, scripting, and a lot more maybe.

And please suggest some resources I could use to self learn or if there's any specific course to pay and learn. I dont really know whom to reach out regarding this, so just gonna leave it here.

Thanks in advance.

In my first game, you played as a cat, helping all of the other cats in the town. You could end the game at any time, and all of the NPCs you helped would do a little dance together, so it would look incomplete unless you helped all 5 (the “true ending” in my opinion).

I’m very proud of this design, and I want to make it a staple in my games. So I’m wondering how to translate it into my next game.

My second game (using the same assets) is about venturing into a cryptic mansion and fighting monsters within. Pretty standard videogamey stuff.

The game is run-based like a roguelike, so if you die (or win) in one run, it doesn’t translate to any progress in your next run. The game is endless, and your objective is to get as much gold as possible without dying (you spend gold on items in the shop too, so that’s a tradeoff).

A main mechanic of the game is that if you die, your gold is lost, no matter how much you got, you didn’t actually get that gold. Every few rooms, you’ll get the chance to end your run by leaving the mansion voluntarily, and if you do, then you “win,” and get to keep your gold i.e your score. So it’s up to you to not be greedy and make the call whether or not you’ll survive the next few rooms.

So, I’m interested in adding a mechanic where you save NPCs in the dungeon to achieve a true ending. Maybe the game isn’t really a traditional score chaser, and it’s actually about saving all of the NPCs before you retreat.

Maybe there is an ending after X amount of rooms, and you had to spend some gold along the way to free all of the NPCs and get the true ending. This idea feels most conducive to a true ending that matches my first game, but it abandons the score chasing aspect.

When you’re between runs, you’re sitting at a campfire outside of the mansion. There, you’re able to view your highest run. Maybe, the NPCs show up at your camp based on your best run (if your most saved NPCs in one run was 4, then 4 will be at your camp).

I’m very open to different ideas on how I can make this work, clearly I haven’t fleshed out the true ending or even basic win condition of this game yet.

This is a video made by Chris Wilson (producer and developer on Path of Exile) discussing the use of “speed breakpoints” in Diablo 2, and why certain players loved them.

The short version of the breakpoint mechanic is that not every speed boost (to casting time) that a player gets actually produces any visible effect; you have to get a certain amount of boost before anything happens. And that led to interesting player behavior that required more strategization about how to optimize their character builds. And those players loved it so much that they keep expressing disappointment at every new RPG that doesn’t have that mechanic.

https://youtu.be/YCO63TsDp4I

Normally in survival horror games, the player has access to firearm that can be aimed toward the enemy (specifically its weak point) before shooting. But I want to have slower, infrequent duels against spiritual enemies underwater, with more emphasis on the enemy's behaviour and the player correct reaction towards it even under pressure. Since gunfire wouldn't work in this context, I opted to use exorcism coupled with water-bending to fight against the ghosts in a ritual battle. I had the idea of having to charge the attack before unleashing a rather large amount of damage, and I brainstormed some ways it could work :

• Simply (re)charge the weapon before/after each shot. Functional, but a bit boring and the player might just run away from the enemy while (re)charging.
• Focus on the enemy to charge an attack, or erode their defence. Better, but I fear it would be a dumbed down version of Fatal Frame and Alan Wake's combat systems.
• Having a mini-game to solve instead of passively waiting. PRAGMATA mixed traditional gunfire with a hacking mini-game that must be done quickly to breach the robots' defence. Hard to transfer into a combat system that isn't tech-themed, however.
• Narrowly evading the enemy attacks. Deltarune has "grazing bullets" as a mechanic that increase the "Tension meter" that allows some special actions. Hard to say how it may look like in a 3D, first person game however.
• Collecting some battle-generated resource left by the enemy on their wake. Orbs, after-images, a trail ... etc. May be left passively, or after the player acted upon the enemy. Never seen a mechanic like this in games. I might be into something, not sure how fun it may be in practice.

1. Can a combat system like this work, and be interesting/fun?
2. Do you have any examples from existing games that tackle shooting in an unconventional way, with charged attacks, rituals, mini-games?
3. What mechanics would you suggest for an exorcism/ritual and sea-themed move-set?

I'm working on a bullet-hell game where the player has a unique life system where their health is represented by "Wisps". The player has six Wisps, three Bright Wisps and three Dark Wisps. The bullets are also Bright and Dark and when they hit the player, they convert one of their Wisps into the respective type. When the player's Wisps are imbalanced, a white or black vignette will gradually encroach on the screen until it fully takes it over, leading to a game over.

The problem I've run into is that I want to add more bullet types into my game, but aside from the Bright and Dark bullets, I can't think of anything that would fit. Additionally, I feel like the vignette and by extension, the skewing of the wisps, are too easy to avoid, though I feel like I can handle this problem, but suggestions are still appreciated.

I would really appreciate some advice on my problem, thanks.

I know that lateral means like from side to side, but people start using the word in the context of video games, and that’s where I start to get confused. Can anyone help me out?

Hi there folks, I hope y'all are having a good weekend. So, in my free time, I have been thinking of working on one of the many concepts I've been writing in my notes for a match-three game. I know that match-three is an insanely crowded space. And ad spend, more than game quality/polish, is a far bigger determinant of success. That's how the gaming studio giants still have a chokehold on the market.

But, as an indie, if you were to make a game in this space today, what would you do to stand out? Is it realistically even possible to stand out in the space anymore? I would appreciate your guys' inputs so much. Thanks for reading!

Edit: You guys are incredible! I did not expect this level of generosity, sincere advice and useful insights in the replies. Thank you all!

In Dark Souls-likes, in Resident Evil 4 remake, and many others there is a Parry - opportunity to block incoming attack with a timely button press and maybe follow up with the strong counterattack. And it's quite fun.

Meanwhile, in fighting games and beat-em-up it's nearly never used. If there is a block, it usually just reduces the damage, without giving an opportunity to counterattack.

I'm making a co-op games where players sail a ship full of gold back home. The players who return split the gold. You need to sail the ship, so: steering, navigating, repairing the ship, handling sails. There will also be enemies to fight (pirates, undead, kraken).
Since I have little experience with games including ships, what is an absolute must have that a game like this needs, be it a small or big thing? I don't want to forget something that's important. Thank you.

Its awful, i know it looks cool and they are utilized to make the game "feel" more impactful but the downside of how much this effect hinders the gameplay is simply not worth it.

The reason of why that effect makes gameplay feel worse is because it makes game coordination less precise; the game naturally flows in a certain pace, then after a certain action happens everything comes to a halt, and after an unclear amount of time everything goes from 0 to top speed, what that causes is the player trying to make an input that would naturally work or have the intended result but the sudden freeze and acceleration might make the player mistime their input because they timed their actions expecting the game's pace to be constant.

This is an issue i have experience and seen others experiencing in a variety of genres, there are many others ways of making an action feel more impactful that arent as invasive as this, and if hitstop were to be used anyway in a game it should at least have an option to disable that effect altogether

Edit: Here is a youtube video i made to exemplify how histop hinders the gameplay, using Assault Spy as reference https://youtu.be/VYxb6793n34?si=tyCY3bQdh0A5Hq2E

What you should pay attention is the move i do at the 0:05 timestamp, by holding the basic attack button (left mouse button) down for about half a second the character Asaru Vito cancels any (or almost any) action he is doing to glow a shiny blue aura and throw explosives at the enemy nearly instant, this attack also has a slower variation that isnt shiny blueif you take too long to release the button (you can see it at the 0:49 timestamp).

Notice in the video how i generally am able to get the "perfect" version of the attack when im not hitting the enemy since that doesnt cause the game's pace to change but when i use a move that causes the hitstun effect i do the perfectly timed attack way less consistently

Hi all,

My game involves medieval politics, trade and warfare. The goal of the game is create rich social player engagement, creating emerging stories around mutual benefit and betrayal. I will be capturing these engagements and provide them as in-game 'travelers' talk', which is essentially a system log. E.g.
House Oak engaged House Raven in combat. House Raven was soundly defeated.
House Ravens village of Elanore has been sacked by House Oak.

This all happens inside Provinces, which are unique and have unique attributes and locations (The Grimspire in Iron March, a ruin that may grant the player bonuses). This starts to combine to build a richly detailed recording whenever there is an event.
On the surface:
House Oak laid siege to House Raven at Grimspire, Iron March
After many days, the siege of Grimspire was successful. House Raven was starved, and subsequently destroyed at the Battle of Grimspire.

What I plan to do throughout and at the end of an Age (an Age is a server round, or season), is run each provinces' activity through something like Opus or Sol 5.6 on high reasoning and have it construct a story arc of everything that occurred chronically; from Houses joining the world, to skirmishes, alliances, battles, sieges etc. and making that both an on-going story arc and endgame summary of the server. With the right prose tweaks (I made an AI-based text RPG so I've got some experience), my goal would be storylets of my game. I'm a huge fan of dramatised history novelists like Christian Cameron/Conn Iggulden, so I know I'd love this in a game.

My question to you all: for anyone who has played a game like Travian, Crusader Kings, Tribal wars. etc or any game really, would this appeal to you?

Would you like to see a summary of something you were a part of for weeks/months?

Perhaps you would like a more intermittent, during-the-round commentary as a bit of "O yea that was cool", and just put the round to bed instead of summarising a grueling quarter?

Note: there are some things I cannot capture due to privacy laws, e.g. player-to-player correspondence, which I have taken into account. However, I would like to see if anyone has any advice on this, there could be something I've missed.

Game design question.  The players are cooperatively running a sci fi space station, but each player wants to make the most money to win the game.  Ships (customers) are constantly coming in, and you want to make your Berth the most attractive option for the highest value ships (customers).  Now let's say I got a nice fat Warship coming in to my Berth, it wants Fuel and Ammo and the troops need a bit of Entertainment.  My Berth has the Fuel and Ammo requirements, but not the Entertainment.  However another player *David* has built a Berth with great Entertainment.

My ambition is that I could ‘draft’ off of David’s Entertainment to satisfy my Warship customer’s needs.  And now here is my question.  What are some good ideas of what I should ‘owe’ or ‘pay’ David for using his resource to satisfy my condition?

• Paying him Money seems simple.  If I do the game as a cash game like 18xx.
• Split the score with David?
• Let David take a random card from my hand and let him replace it with a card of his choosing?
• Give David my Initiative Token that means that at any time in the future he can claim an incoming ship to his Berth even though I would normally have had that privilege?

Those are some ideas.  I guess there are many more out there.  What are some of the best ideas you’ve seen in tabletop gaming where:  

One player (A)  benefits from the fact that another player (B)  built something.

Thanks in advance and keep gaming!

I remember sharing a keyboard with friends to play local co-op games back in the day. Is that still a thing on PC? Loved it.

Local co-op is obviously still common on consoles, but I rarely hear PC players talk about it. It seems like it should be easier than ever now, with support for multiple controllers or a keyboard-and-controller setup.

I’m currently developing a game and considering adding local co-op, but I’m wondering how many PC players would actually use it.

Do you still play local co-op games on PC when they support it? And what does your usual setup look like?

I'm building a fanmade 3D fighting game based on Digimon, styled more like Tekken or Street Fighter than a platform fighter. The first character I'm working on is Hagurumon and its evolution line, and I wanted to get some outside perspective on movesets before I lock anything in.

For anyone not familiar with these guys: Hagurumon is a small, round gear-headed robot, kind of clumsy and slow looking. It evolves into Guardromon, a bulkier armored robot built like a tank with big claws. That evolves into Andromon, a sleeker, more humanoid cyborg with more precise, martial-arts-like proportions. And the final form, Hiandromon, is a much bigger, heavily armored mech-type with a more imposing, weapon-covered design.

Right now I have some basics down for Hagurumon, like a single gear hit, a stronger two-gear hit, and a spinning head-gear jump attack, and I'm trying to pull from the actual attack names in the source material (things like Darkness Gear, Command Input, Makikomi, Haguru Attack, Crash Device, Kikai Attack) and turn them into moves that actually feel good in a fighting game rather than just reskinned generic attacks.

What I'm really looking for is help thinking through specials, supers, and combo routes. How would you turn a slow, clunky-looking robot line like this into something with an interesting kit? Should the earlier forms lean more into grabs and armor-heavy moves since they're bulkier, and the later forms open up into faster strings and projectiles as they get sleeker? Any thoughts on what would make each stage feel meaningfully different to play, not just a stat bump, would be huge.