Fun over function Not all elements in a game need to have a function. You can have a mechanic that’s just fun to play around with, but serves no real purpose. You see this with the basketball pre-match in Overwatch or just using the toilet in Bioshock Infinite. And you might notice that while these don’t have any […]
Why would people play your game? This may sound like an easy question, but the better you understand your game, the better you can improve it. Answers like ‘just because it’s hard’, or ‘because it has cool weapons’ only skim the surface. In this case, you’ll get closer if you say it’s because players like the challenge in your game. Better […]
The quality of a level is largely dependent on its relative placement Depending on where a level stands compared to the rest, decides for a big portion how well that level works. It may be too difficult at an earlier point, or to easy at a later one. If you find yourself tweaking a level to no end to make it easier or more understandable, the problem […]
A good puzzle: Observation -> Experimentation -> Understanding -> Execution If you’re making a puzzle game, it can be useful to examine your levels by this structure. If your game contains levels and one is too easy, it might be because players come to an understanding too quickly, or they don’t need to experiment and understand enough to execute its solution. Here is the breakdown […]
Fix a game’s content rather than its systems This is obviously not true for every case, but most of the time designing you’re working on systems and refining them. So when you see one case where there’s a problem, it’s easy to fix that by tweaking the system. But then there’s a big chance it would ripple out and create new problems elsewhere. […]
Prevent a problem rather than fixing it This applies also when the problem is already there. You can ask yourself ‘How can I fix it?’ but it’s a lot more useful to ask ‘How can I prevent it?’. In the latter, you’re more likely to look at the cause of the problem, instead of its effect and you’re able to solve it […]
Create a feedback function Usually in the prototyping stage you don’t have all the nice art to guide the player’s attention. That’s why it’s super useful to a quick and dirty function to make some simple feedback pop up. It could be a little ring, an explosion, some particles, anything really. Or if you’re using gamemaker just: ‘effect_create_above‘. With […]
