#Game Design Strategies

[nicholasandriani]

Mastering Isometric & Isomorphic Game Design: A Quickstart Guide to Unlocking 3D Potential in 2D Worlds

We say that: “oh I love that Baldur Gate, let’s crack out an isometric.” Or, “oh, digging this Final Fantasy Tactics stuff, let’s do that sideways angle thing.” But what does that mean? Let’s break it down mathematical. T:(X,∥⋅∥X)→(Y,∥⋅∥Y) is a isometric isomorphism if it is a linear isomorphism, and it is an isometry, that is ∥T(x)∥Y=∥x∥X∀x∈X; T:(X,∥⋅∥X)→(Y,∥⋅∥Y) is a topological…

[prokopetz]

I love it when farm animals in strategy games have their own little pockets of visibility in the fog of war, because the fog of war is ostensibly a visual abstraction of military intelligence-gathering, which implies that the goat is submitting intel reports.

[arcadebroke]

[clumsypuppy]

whatever. go my scarab

ive been watching scruffys pikmin 4 playthrough (go check it out!!!!)

[xia0ming56]

Played marvel rivals w oomf n immediately got reminded why i stick to single player strategy games🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

[blazing-butterfly]

FUCK I just dreamed an amazing game and then I woke up and it didn't exist.

It was a videogame that played like a board game, with a bunch of factions vying for control of a dark dystopian fantasy city. There was your classic authoritarian prophet church, a monster-hunting but probably corrupt knightly order, a demonic pyromaniac cult, a greedy engineering guild with clockpunk robots, a plague of sentient zombies living in the sewers, the dying king seeking immortality through forbidden magic... yeah the city was in big trouble no matter who won.

Like in Root there were some universal rules but each faction played differently, for example the church had to fulfill their prophecies and would lose power if they failed to come true, the knights got more glory the bigger a threat the monsters they slayed were which gave them a conflict of interest, the cult had to operate in secret by setting up schemes and keeping them hidden, the guild sold their services to other factions while building infrastructure to expand their abilities, the plague was weak in direct conflict but could easily grow its numbers, the king started strong but would steadily lose strength unless his experiments paid off, etc.

Also, the first faction to cross a certain threshold of power had to choose a crisis, like a natural disaster or city-wide riots or the appearance of a giant monster, and each of those brought new problems for all the factions to deal with. You could try to pick one that would cause more trouble for your rivals and less for you, but there were none that reliably worked in the chooser's favor. In fact, their purpose was to give players who'd fallen behind another chance to grab power in the chaos. Pretty slick game design, I think.

The last awesome thing was the soundtrack, because yeah apparently the game was made in collaboration with a band and they made a whole folk-metal-rock-opera concept album about it, complete with a vocal theme song for each faction. And it was goooood music, some of the faction themes got me teary-eyed because they showed that even though it was a deeply cynical setting there was still hope in this world.

No faction was uncompromised good BUT none were irredeemable evil either! The music didn't get much into individual characters since the game itself lacked those (except for the king, whose song was about grappling with his impending death and wishing he had time to fix his mistakes), but it conveyed that heroes and villains could be found on every side and that most people in every faction were flawed, yes, but had joy and dreams and loved ones and other things worth fighting for, and did the best they could with the deeply messed-up situation they were in.

[posthumanwanderings]

Dragon Force (Sega / Working Designs - Saturn - 1996)

[r-aindr0p]

I don't know if you play Honkai Star Rail, but your hunter!Crewel design looks like a character called Boothill

Ya I know, I actually have him in game :))))))) (I don't play it lately though it's too time consuming) (yes his name is "the gravedigger" in french, idk )

Didn't have him in mind when drawing outfits for crewel though, they just share the same color palette (I had that idiot from "the vampire dies in no time" in mind in desogn only though not personality :")

[sprintingowl]

Radish Knights - Launches In October!

Radish Knights, my feature length tabletop roleplaying tactics game about tiny vegetable knights defending their kingdoms, is launching on October 2nd 2024!

You pick a vegetable, choose a knightly order, and engage in tiny chess-board-sized combats against bandits, kudzu dragons, fallen orders, and an empire of corn.

The game is entirely human made, with design and writing by me and art by Jonas Wittmann (who did the excellent illustrations in my chicken-thieving fantasy game Mendicant.)

I'm an extremely small indie designer, so I rely a lot on word of mouth in order to crowdfund my games. I would love it if you spread the word about this one, and if you personally want to be notified when it launches, hit the Notify Me button on the other side of the link.

There's no specific goodies for being first, but you do get first pick of the limited backer levels where you can force me to add new vegetables, knightly orders, weapons, or monsters to the game.

[sodiumbromidee]

Illustration of my oc Anala and @blackkatdraws2 / @blackkatdraws tsp narrator.

Kept thinking abt how if this AU was a game how would It pan out and then gave me the idea for this illustration

[nr1-logo-design-inspiration]

Wizard Logo Design

Get your unique & creative logo now! 💌

[wandringaesthetic]

The game design thing that I hope is influential about Expedition 33 is not the turn based battles or the Dodge/Parry mechanics it's that 1) it's okay with you getting lost and 2) it is okay with you missing stuff

Exploration feels rewarding because there is stuff to find everywhere. There are optional bosses. There are cool weapons and pictos. There are abilities for Monoco. There are clues about the plot that you could miss if you don't go off the path! You can get through the game without all this but it's better if you screw around a bit. You are unlikely to find everything on your own.

Modern games so often give you lists of things. Minimaps. Gaps in your inventory. If you're missing something, you know what it is and where. But that makes it feel like a massive to-do list instead of just.... Exploring. Seeing what's out there.

[lordgeneralsix]

is it just me or is bioware spoiling way too much about the game . talking about gameplay improvements is one thing but revealing story and companion arcs seems very insecure to me bc now the mystery is gone when people play for the first time . seems like they're trying too hard to prove that their game isn't garbage after that first trailer but this is not how you do that

[arcadebroke]

[clumsypuppy]

beep beep im a sheep

speeddraw below the cut (audio warning)

song: "Cult of Dionysis" by The Orion Experience

[michellerakar]

I officially finished my 10th Global Game Jam project with my brother over the weekend!

In this strategy card game, you play as Piko in his journey along the Bobolo River, where he'll face off against challengers in the World Bub Tournament.

This was definitely our most complex GGJ project to make so far, but after doing some bug fixing this week, the first version is ready to play. We had a lot of fun making it, and as usual, GGJ continues to be one of my favorite yearly traditions.

💾 Download and play the game here!