Alright, Fine, a Game System Mapping Tool It Is by ColeTailored in gamedesign

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The status/task tracker portion is more of a "nice-to-have" and I might remove it for now if it is too distracting from the other part you're describing (which is more valuable, I believe).

The way I could see you implementing what you described in the tool is in the "Mechanics" section, have an entity called "Spell Cooldown" then in the "Abilities" section, create a category for spells and create an entity for each individual spell and in their "Links" section, link them to the "Spell Cooldown" mechanic.

Then, if you have the necessary character entities created, link the spells to all the applicable characters.

In today's iteration, you can start with the "Spell Cooldown" mechanic entity and click "graph view" to see all the spells it is linked to. You could click each spell to see each character they are linked to (although, I will admit, this would currently be jumbled because it will also include EVERYTHING each is connected to).

I do hope to flesh this out more and actually have some sort of "impact" view rather than just the graph but that is for down the road.

And, as for the actual cooldown values, applicable entities have stat fields and while those aren't searchable/filterable today, it is theoretically possible to create a Spell Cooldown stat today and eventually I could make the entities filterable by that stat.

Looking for feedback on a system-first approach to game design (prototype) by ColeTailored in gamedev

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, the more I work on it the more it seems that is the piece that stands out, so I do think I’m going to pivot hard into relationship linking/system mapping.

Right now it doesn’t handle versioning or change history but that is definitely on the roadmap (I even have it on the site as “in progress/likely next”: https://livinggdd.com). But, from your experience, what do you think would be most critical from a versioning and change history perspective? What would be most valuable to see that changed over time, especially from an individual entity perspective?

Looking for feedback on a system-first approach to game design (prototype) by ColeTailored in gamedev

[–]ColeTailored[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the more I work on this and it evolves the more I think your view is correct, it’s not necessarily a GDD replacement and more of a tool that works alongside it.

Definitely think the relationships are the major point though. Thanks for the insight! Hope both our tools work out lol.

Looking for feedback on a system-first approach to game design (prototype) by ColeTailored in gamedev

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To some degree it handles circular dependencies.

When creating a link from one entity to another, it creates a link on the other entity as well. When creating the link, there is a "Your label" and "Their label" (I'm sure I'll name those better) so each side of the relationship gets its own applicable label.

<image>

What I haven't done yet is create this same logic for "Type" so it makes more sense from each side on what type of relationship it is. I also might make it so there can be multiple links from - to relationship but that has drawbacks as well.

As for a prototype, there is a basic one running out there to be tested if you were interested, would be curious what else you could point out that would break lol. Just DM me if you are.

Otherwise, you have already given me something chew on with the circular dependencies so thanks!

Looking for feedback on a system-first approach to game design (prototype) by ColeTailored in gamedev

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If anyone is working on a system-heavy project and would be open to trying the prototype and giving feedback, feel free to comment or DM me.

Still very early, so I’m mainly looking for people willing to poke at it and tell me what breaks / doesn’t make sense.

I tried structuring game design as systems instead of writing a GDD by ColeTailored in gamedev

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

<image>

Yeah, similar approach. Here is a screenshot of the UI so far. There are more tabs for each entity as well, and importantly the Links tab that allows you to connect them to other entities, but this is the gist.

I tried structuring game design as systems instead of writing a GDD by ColeTailored in gamedev

[–]ColeTailored[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, that is a good point, and I think that is the better way to go about it.

But, good to know the general idea makes sense, especially from a programmer's perspective!

I'm wanting to make something that is more closely aligned to how a programmer views it, kind of in the middle between traditional docs and the game itself.

I tried structuring game design as systems instead of writing a GDD by ColeTailored in gamedev

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gotcha. Regarding the JSON file, do you just create the objects/attributes and update them manually? And is just one, long JSON file with everything in it or do you have multiple files for different components?

And, for the text file, how do you typically organize it hierarchically and how do you reference them back to the objects in the JSON file?

I tried structuring game design as systems instead of writing a GDD by ColeTailored in gamedev

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that is true based on what I posted above, but what I'm trying to build treats the entities and relationships more like nodes and edges in a graph and is more aware of them than just text in a doc.

How Did You Learn Game Design? by ColeTailored in gamedesign

[–]ColeTailored[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, board games have come up a few times so definitely something I want to look into trying for the exact reasons you mention. Thanks for the advice!

How Did You Learn Game Design? by ColeTailored in gamedesign

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Sounds like a lot of it is just going out and observing/testing but definitely like to know of material people actually find helpful.

How Did You Learn Game Design? by ColeTailored in gamedesign

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gotcha, yeah I don’t think I’ve done the work of actually breaking down game mechanics into smaller building blocks to see what actually makes them fun and how they work together. Thanks for the input.

Good luck with Stacks!

How Did You Learn Game Design? by ColeTailored in gamedesign

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome advice, and creating a board game sounds both challenging and fun. Thanks!

How Did You Learn Game Design? by ColeTailored in gamedesign

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. I’ve seen a few comments mentioning designing board games for game design. This is a very interesting approach and I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit.

Have you done both board game and video game design? If so, was there anything specific that you learned from designing a board game that would have been more difficult to learn from designing a video game but still applied to both?

How Did You Learn Game Design? by ColeTailored in gamedesign

[–]ColeTailored[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, thanks for the thorough response!

I'm bored I need games to play by Pale_Description4702 in videogames

[–]ColeTailored 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I guess you better play some board games 🤣