#game design thoughts

[theslimeologist]

curious as to how you feel about slime rancher's gameplay as a whole, if you wanna talk about it

oh boy.

slime rancher has a unique chaos-focused gameplay design unlike any other game ive played while also going for a chill farming vibe. after years of playing the first game, and just a handful of hours in the second.. i believe the gameplay loop and level design to be the reason I havent played the series in recent years.

everything in slime rancher is random.

crop yield, crop grow time, slime spawns, slimes feeding themselves, everything. and this is the core, foundational game design philosophy they’ve dedicated themselves to. and they’ve doubled down on the randomness in sr2.

shop stock is random every day. unlocking blueprints come unpredictably. resource nodes are randomly scattered about. weather, which can dictate slime AND material spawning, is 100% random. not even to what weather happens, but what DEGREE the weather is.

this much random chance has made the series appeal to me less and less with time. i love to strategize beyond all else in a farming game, and slime rancher’s “chill chaos” just doesnt accommodate my style of gameplay anymore. i want resource extractors. i want to have a reliable income in terms of resources so i can do all the incredible decorating they’ve added.. but i dont think anything could get me to play hundreds of hours of sr2 to collect resources by hand at the mercy of rng. i did this with gilded gingers for fun. i never wanted to do that for EVERYTHING.

now, to look at sr2’s gameplay and design decisions more closely..

slimes live in corrals. boxes. this is one thing i thought could have always been expanded on. enclosures are as simple as ever, essentially what they always were right from sr1 beta. slimes being fed are still dictated by the chance of food hitting their mouths at the right angle, right time, with the slime in the right mood. it just doesnt work reliably, leading to slime chaos despite any player’s best efforts. the devs seem to see this as part of the game, and not something that could be revolutionized or improved upon. the ranch expansions are as simple as ever. we can decorate them though…! i guess…! i wish there was more thought and love put into the ranching. more involved slime care. i had a lot of ideas i never drew down for how things could change..

moving on to the level design itself, the areas in sr2 feel more confusing than ever for me to navigate. and ive stubbornly believed that is not on me. the islands are focused on experiencing beauty and wonder, but not really designed with normal gameplay quirks that can help players navigate without even knowing they’re being helped. like landmarks. sr2 has the volcano, split tree and the conservatory. these three things are actually pretty difficult to spot in most locations, which really fucking sucks. if you’re lost on the sr2 map, they really just want you to open the map or wander. another thing that has always bugged me a TON, is in the rainbow fields there is a fucking death drop into water that looks like youre walking home. like…. LIKE???? another thing that feels especially controversial to point out is how the super-saturated aesthetic of every area can make an area feel samey, confusing even. rainbow fields have rainbows everywhere. imo, you could have gone for that idea while having brightly coloured trees, rocks, grass, that are DIFFERENT COLOURS. FOR CONTRAST. pick bright colours that complement eachother and sculpt the world with it. when i think of rainbow fields, i honestly can only imagine the purply blue grass and moss on grey stones…

it feels as though sr2 was all about pushing the teams creative and aesthetic abilities with a huge sacrifice to regular gameplay design. a slime rancher sequel was an opportunity to build anew from the ground up and address huge issues with 1’s unreliability due to physics and loading zones, etc. the full game isnt out yet so i cant speak on whether they’ll ever take these kinds of issues into consideration in future patches.

anyway at the end of the day, for a game so focused on aesthetic, slime rancher 2 doesnt even have properly textured tangle largos. I wont bother to look or photograph them all myself because tangles are only from rare weather. but next time you’re in game, check out that flat batty tangle flower for yourself. until that flower gets a proper texture patch i dont really have much else to say.

[safelynte]

Thinking about Chess

[runawaychar]

I had an idea for a variant on Pf2e leveling rule that makes bookeeping a little bit simpler and allows for more dungeon crawl style progression - instead of giving out XP by milestone or per encounter, use the Treasure by Level table - once the requisite permanents/consumables have been obtained (or currency equivalent), the party levels up. Could be fun for a megadungeon with a variable amount of encounters due to wandering monsters & restocking.

Come to think of it, RAW this is theoretically what milestone leveling *is* in Pf2e - the game balance breaks down if the leveled treasure doesn't keep pace with difficulty. In practice, milestone leveling in PF2e tends to cause long-term problems, as parties not keeping track of XP are unlikely keeping track of treasure, which is already a much bigger ask!

Of course, this isn't an issue if encounter balance isn't a concern, but in which case PF2e may not be the right system 🤔

[raisengen]

I understand the RPG industry consensus these days is against traditional ambush-style random encounters, considering them irritating to the players. The favoured alternative is to place enemies in the overworld that the player has agency to avoid or approach to initiate battles.

And maybe it's just luck of the draw, but the last few RPGs I've played have made healing between combat very easy, or even free.

Now, I'm certainly one of those people annoyed by ambush encounters, but I still feel this new paradigm is rather dull. If the player can easily avoid fights, or heal between fights, then there's no attrition. If there's no attrition, then any fight outcome is the same as long as you win. If all you need to do is win, you can quickly find your autopilot that wins the damage race—after all, with random/repeated encounters you're not going to get new and interesting challenges each time, especially not when the player can start from a clean slate each time (and I'm not seeing them tuned to credibly threaten game overs against that clean slate).

So what are we doing here? Just going through the motions? Chewing through padding until we get to something interesting? Pretending that it's not just a straight walk to the next boss fight?

I can't help but feel Pokémon had the right idea of it, with random encounters pared down (while also offering the possibility of a new Pokémon, and not just inconvenience), with the meat of battle put into lots of hand-designed one-off trainer battles. A pity that the games are on the easy end...

[theresattrpgforthat]

Still working on the playstest for Protect the Child, my FitD game of monster babysitters! Had my second playtest session this week, and the thoughts are marinating.

One of the things my players mentioned is that he's excited to see how the clocks start to ramp up and affect the characters as they play. I'm also realizing just how important it is for Factions to be involved with your crew, because they're going to be the primary motivators for your monsters to do pretty much anything.

I'm thinking about how PtC has the potential to be a reactive game, if you push the Factions to be hounding the monsters as they run from place to place, alongside emphasizing the Child's needs.

No further tweaks to the central game document just yet (apart from some quickstart stuff in the works) but I'm excited to see how the long-term play manifests as the tension builds!

[celleryeller]

Game design thoughts- Superliminal

I’ve decided, for shits and giggles and bettering my analysis skills, that I’ll write and post some thought about the game design of games I’m playing for the first time. Not a rating or anything, just a sort of what I learned from it

I just finished Superliminal on the Xbox. Only took around 2 hours for a solid first playthrough. Made in Unity, released 2019.

The main mechanics were around perspective. Unfortunately, this playthrough wasn’t completely blind, because there was a gif set or promo trailer floating around Tumblr a couple years ago, and it showed the mechanics before I got a chance to figure them out myself. But, the premise is picking up objects, and their size depends on the actual perspective when you drop it.

I think those mechanics are pretty fucking cool. I would love to see how the idea was originally prototyped. Or how they came up with the idea. Honestly tomorrow morning I might look into if the creators have done any interviews or anything.

The tutorial was pretty sick though. Instead of ui elements floating and telling you what to do, everything was written on objects in the game. My favorite was “press a to jump” being on a wet floor sign.

Narratively, it did make me ponder about brute forcing puzzles, and trying the same thing over and over. There was one puzzle I was stuck on near the end that I only decided to change perspectives on after I noticed the classic game trick of teleporting the player to create a feeling of infinite looping. While I didn’t walk away fundamentally changed, I did gain a new perspective on how I do puzzles.

The juice was pretty good, too. It got me giddy to pull every fire alarm and use up every fire extinguisher just because the option was there. There might also be achievements for doing that each level? Idk. Superliminal also had some good (although a little too loud) controller shake when an object was made huge and dropped on the ground. There was text I couldn’t read on papers that I wanted to read. The loading screens were great too, and while the bar animations weren’t accurate, the variation and weirdness for each one made up for it.

The limitations, unfortunately, were a touch obvious. The edges of light could shine through objects in a way that initiated something was up. Too many objects bumping around (which didn’t happen often) made a god awful sound. Screen hiccups happened a lot. Honestly, all of it was bearable, but the first one in particular just made me think about how light does that and it pisses me off as a developer that I can’t control it.

Other thoughts:

The walking around and setting felt very reminiscent of The Stanley Parable, especially in the repeated opening segments.

Music cutoffs were well placed and heavily affected the tone.

Late game played heavily with dream with dream sensation, and so perfectly emulated the dream feeling of looking at everything right side up while it feels like you’re laying down.

Played with the medium. I mentioned earlier that it used teleportation for infinite hallway tricks, but at some point it just started teleporting you for the purpose of being jarring.

On a similar note, it loved to play with the first person camera. It knew that you couldn’t look behind you, so it had complete free range to silently change whatever you weren’t looking at. Then when everything was breaking down, it started fucking with you and changing things as you looked at them, so you only saw the change once you moved

There was one level intended to be eerie, and it did that so well it made me google “is Superliminal scary.” The answer is no. I’m just a bit of a paranoid fraidy cat. It ended with a joke so good I instantly forgave it for making me scared.

The humor was also pretty good. It’s a good reminder that games can bet serious AND a little bit silly with it.

The piano music was superb

The options menu was simple and bland. It didn’t need to be anything else. Everything it had could simple fall under “gameplay” or “audio” settings.

Conformed to the wonderful idea that text to speech voices are evil. Fuck tik tok.

Overall, it was a sick game! I might do a couple more replays tomorrow. Or I’ll move to something else.

[rollforfelicity]

I get the impulse of wanting to subvert a game or tweak the mechanics of it. I get reading a playbook and wanting to play against type.

BUT

So many TTRPGs, especially systems like Belonging Outside Belonging or Powered by the Apocalypse, have so few mechanics, and the mechanics they do have reward you for leaning into genre and archetype and fall apart when you stray too far. Not to mention they're often designed to subvert themselves as the game goes on, after the tropes have been established.

SO

The first time I run or play a game, I lean into what the game is pushing me to do. Before I try to turn the game into something else, I want to experience what the game is. If there are plot hooks or random tables, I use 'em. If there's a starting adventure, I'm playing it. I used to always make up my own thing because I wanted to be "original," but when I switched to running with what the writer provides, I've had such a lighter load as a GM, and the results have been great stories that fit the system and genre really well.

Some examples that spring to mind are Alicia Furness's Basic Witches, SprintingOwl's Pie Lent Hill, John Harper's Lasers and Feelings, and Chris Bissette's Under The Floorboards. When I've run these, I've relied really heavily, if not exclusively, on the game itself to establish plot hooks and setting elements.

[valehour]

Spoilers for DE:

I think the idea of deliberately impossible skillchecks to demonstrate how ultimately Harry will never get his ex back is in many ways more, like, not necessarily compelling than the "action boss you're meant to lose to" but different in a way RPGs should use way more. Like, I think it's the fact that with a boss you're meant to fight but lose to necessarily requires you to like, think about Fighting Good, whereas Foreverloss dialogue bosses require you to pay attention, and see the disaster unfold slowly and meticulously- like you're watching something horrific unfold in slow motion, but you can't do anything about it- you can't even delay the horrors be doing combat good. Or maybe it's just like, the way your skills are so apologetic about their inability to save you

[aaruaalislost]

wishful thinking…. Zelda as an archer companion in totk…..

[egophiliac]

Final manifestations for Book 7?

I'm trying REALLY hard not to build up any solid expectations, because I wanna go in ~fresh~! they're already so far away from anything I thought would happen (not in a bad way, I'm just accepting that I'm on Miss Yana's Wild Ride at this point and we're seeing this thing through 'til the end, by gum). so it's nothing too major, but:

they've been handing new crying expressions out like candy lately, I want to see some delicious Malleus tears.

honestly I want everyone to cry buckets. their tears sustain me. the more Silver angst specifically I get the happier I am.

SILVER!!!! 👏 VANROUGE!!!! 👏

just let him have this. the poor boy's been through so much. let him have his big "I'm proud of you, son" moment with Lilia.

I'm 100% expecting Grim's arc (and probably whatever's going on with Crowley) to be its own episode, but a nice hook to leave us hanging on would be good!

a nice hook though, please, I don't think I can take another "Grim is attacking us! now wait eight months to find out what happens :)" cliffhanger...

some Meleanor? as a treat? just a little bit, a tiny quick flashback or something, please Twst I just, I just want to see her again. let her have a little ghost cameo like Dawnathan Knight got. Lilia and his kids are all having their big group hug or whatever and she can gently fade in to be all like

(turning asks off until I'm done playing, SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE Y'ALL)

[suntails]

touch the spindle, touch it i say!

[ruushes]

🗣️ pay ‼️🗣️ attention ‼️🗣️ to ‼️🗣️ him ‼️

[safelynte]

Thinking...

In a card game, there are usually 2 resources. Card count and some form of mana/energy. The 2-resource system seems to work pretty well. Each resource keeps the other in check. So, you players desire a balance of both resources to feel optimal. Designers can design cards that cost 0 in resource (or self-replacing in terms of card count) without breaking the game.

YGO exceptionally only has card count and no mana energy. The card draws/refill issue is easy to see (Pot of Greed).

But what about the other way? Increasing to a third+ resource? Probably viable. But it might be too much mindspace. Playing cards is smooth because you only need to know you have the card and then check the energy for it. Having to check twice seems cumbersome. So, it would have to be somehow an easy-to-check resource. However, MTG mixes different mana colors, and they do very well with it. I like MTG's "tapping" mechanic since it uses the cards as resource symbols. It is very easy to view & check.

I often think about this because of adding a Grid to card games or adding cards to board/grid-based games. We have Duelyst, Fights in Tight Spaces, and Alina of the Arena to reference now. Excellent games, btw. But I've always considered position & movement as extra resources to manage. Duelyst can have an explosion of options as you put more minions on the board. Alina has extremely limited movement. And gaining extra movement can be ludicrously powerful (ground slam). And I have yet to play Fights in Tight Spaces. I should get on that. All three games have very tight maps. Crowded maps ensure that there are always units in reach of each other - there is always action.

From another perspective, we can consider the hand of cards a player draws as an abstraction of their position. Thinking of Slay the Spire, for instance. If you draw no attacks, it represents that you aren't in a position to attack. If you draw no defensive cards, it represents being cornered (also good luck). So, cards like Leap and Backflip represent agility in the game. Adding a grid offloads this representation onto position and movement. An agile Alina build would have shuffle and lunge... and ground slam. Alina separates blocking and mobility effects, but Slay the Spire merges them.

Anyway, thanks for reading this aimless rambling.

[tsukinoshinjiu]

Wake up, Dreamer.

Get this as a print here!

[raisengen]

Nightreign's quick and varied replay scratches at something I've been thinking about for a while. A stereotypical RPG looks like the following:

You are given a number of ways to build your character,

You have to lock into that build style, preventing you from using every option,

You have multiple story branches, even if only at the quest level,

Playthroughs are very long (maybe 50-100 hours).

This means that the developers produce a lot of content that only a minority of players will experience. There's more nuance to unpack here, but at a first glance it does suggest you could make hay by resolving that tension.

There are plenty of examples you can find of games dropping different elements of that list to various degrees of success. Bravely Default and Code Vein drop point 2, various JRPGs drop 1 and 3, Armored Core (not really an RPG but hey) drops 2 and trims down 3 & 4 just enough to work out.

For this post, it's the idea of dropping point 4 that I'm interested in. The poster child for that approach is the roguelike genre, but they typically lean heavy on randomness and light on narrative. Nightreign's arcade style gives you more control over how things shake out, so you can choose how to explore build options, making it a great mechanical demonstration of the idea; you can experience more playstyles in 10 hours of Nightreign than you would in 100 hours of Elden Ring.

Again, though, you've lost the narrative side of things. I feel like there's space to lean into the storytelling at the same time, let the player explore different narrative possibilities while exploring the different gameplay possibilities, though I can't say any good examples come to mind.

[foxdoodles]

messing around with some book haymitch designs in preparation for the new book next year!!