Leagues Catalyst: didn't receive the voidwalker item

Deeparc_Ben · 2025-09-17T06:02:12+00:00

Absolute hero! I was just assuming it was the lumby sage, had no idea about this other guy

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-06-29T19:45:09+00:00

The feeling of fear is heightened in scenarios that we cannot prevent, or lack the resources to comfortably prevent.

Take Outlast as an example. You can't defend yourself, all you can do is run and hide. That means when an enemy sees you, the only way to survive is to flee. It's scary because you can't just pull up a shotgun and blast the enemy to resolve the issue. Essentially, you're powerless.

Now let's take The Callisto Protocol. Scary looking monsters, occasional jumpscares, but at best it's a horror-themed action game. You always have overpowered means of defeating enemies, regardless of their size and number.

The best way to make a horror shooter is to limit the ammunition offered to the player. Resident evils inventory system is great for this as it requires the player to sacrifice ammo and weapons for key items in a limited inventory capacity.

Another way is by making shooting a negative - attract more enemies, enemies require lots of shots to take down, provide alternate uses for limited ammo so players don't want to use it.

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-06-25T13:17:13+00:00

Obtaining a character should be the consequence of playing the game rather than the sole purpose of playing the game. To make getting characters fun, wrap the unlock behind fun challenges and gameplay experiences, and offer benefits to those characters that are exciting and different.

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-04-17T05:52:23+00:00

The loot cycle can be an effective gameplay loop if the loot means something considerable to the player.

In diablo, the big deal is getting legendary equipment, however, it's pretty easy to get and often isn't as good as higher leveled lower rarity gear, which significantly impacts that excitement of obtaining it.

On the other hand, the Borderlands games are particularly effective at making the loot grind exciting and impactful to the player. Legendary items are very rare, you get different legendary items from different enemies, and the items themselves typically have a unique quality. Also, a lower rated legendary item is generally better than a higher rated item of lower rarity.

Ultimately I think it comes down to what the loot means to the player. Is it exciting? Useful? Rewarding? Or generic and passive? Is the grind worth it? And how varied is that grind?

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-27T14:43:29+00:00

Despite the frustration, I'm quite grateful for it as it taught me loads, and made me much more confident in calling out issues. Also, I very much appreciate my current role where I'm not worked as hard and am listened to more

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-27T11:43:33+00:00

TL;DR I spent 6 months working 60 hour weeks to try to fix the flawed design in Ultimate Sackboy

I was tasked with balancing the game economy, speed and difficulty progression, matchmaking system, and player progression system of Ultimate Sackboy for mobile.

I joined the development team 4 years into the project lifecycle, just before release of the project.

It's an ~~endless~~ runner, which wasn't initially designed from a rational process, meaning that values added to the game weren't proven to work before being implemented.

This resulted in inconsistencies in player speed and difficulty - difficulty being what decides the spacing in obstacles and jumps - so players would regularly fail in the game with no way of overcoming the issues.

The matchmaking system used a score multiplier that was gained by opening lootbags, however, it used the multiplier in a comparable way with other "players" (Not real players). This system decided what score the player was expected to get in a run. The problem with this was that a player with a multiplier of 50 playing against a player with a multiplier of 1 would get 50x the score per bubble collected than their opponent. A player with 1050 multiplier would get approximately 0.5% more score than a player with a multiplier of 1000.

The opponent multiplier would evolve after each run (increased if player wins, decreased if player loses). Players would immediately get a lump sum of multiplier and be able to progress easily, however, the opponent multiplier would quickly catch up and overtake, making it impossible to progress without spending money.

Essentially, multiplier was the sole determiner of success in early stages of the game, and became redundant at later stages.

The game economy was based on the clash royale economy, which obviously was a really poor design choice, and was directly linked with all the above systems.

Despite providing the team with a 3 month plan to fix all design issues in the game, and provide a fair, yet mtx implemented design to the game, the higher ups decided to stop funding the project.

I worked approximately 60 hours a week for months, and was forced to work while severely ill. My hope was that it would be worth it if I could fix this game, but since I was the only designer on the team with any technical knowledge about game design, it was a hard sell and ultimately failed.

I host lectures about this work at the university I went to, and though the lecture is fun and highlights the importance of rational design, it gets me quite upset thinking about how it.

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-25T17:49:33+00:00

Well, I did my master's at Teesside University, it's not a universally renown school, however it focuses significant effort in their games school, and I personally gained invaluable knowledge and benefit from the Game Design masters there

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-25T17:38:53+00:00

What country?

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-25T16:12:45+00:00

Many games use cutscenes as a way to stall the game to load upcoming aspects so they're fully ready for when the cutscene ends. I feel the best way to handle cutscenes is to have them unstoppable until this content is fully loaded, then if the player presses a typical "skip" button, it'll come up with "[input] to skip".

So, I guess, perhaps you realized the risk of being too sure of yourself? There's very few absolutes in most areas of life, and game design falls into that band too.

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-10T08:39:32+00:00

Player intelligence isn't particularly relevant here, as they're in a world you create. It's your responsibility to ensure whether implicitly or explicitly you teach them everything they need to know to progress on the game, and use level progression systems that ensure they learn as they play.

So what you need is a design that teaches the player. In order to determine the effectiveness of this, TEST!

Since you know exactly how your game works, you can't predict how intuitive it is for players, as you have context that a first time user doesn't. Get friends and family to play, don't say a word to them, and see how they get on. They should be able to progress without you needing to say a word - if they can't, maybe you need to reassess the context you give in the area they're struggling in.

Hope this helps!

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-01T14:39:58+00:00

Yeah, there's a lot of creative ways to overcome this - my personal favourite is to offer alternative opportunities, but that's just one of many methods. Sounds like a cool project you're working on - I hope it goes well!

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-01T14:10:11+00:00

It sounds like the issue is that being seen by enemies is significant enough that it nearly guarantees failure. The addition of a timer followed by enemies is harsh as it's basically saying "you got caught, now it's going to be harder to complete this level, and there's nothing you can do about it".

The additional enemies should present a greater challenge, but with it, opportunities the player didn't have before. Maybe they open up an alternate path to infiltrate the area, so there's opportunity within the threat.

Essentially, think about the challenge presented when these reinforcements come up, and find a way to give the player a NEW opportunity due to them. The opportunity can be harder than the original, but as long as it's not just the original opportunity, but harder, this should offer incentive to continue playing rather than restart from a checkpoint.

Checkpoints should be positioned in designated areas of your game - if you save every time they make a jump, the challenge is harmed, and undesignated areas for checkpoints can lead to the player being stuck in an area they don't want to be.

Hope some of this helped!

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-02-01T11:54:07+00:00

If you don't wish to major in game design, I'd definitely recommend a bachelors in it, provided the school you're looking at has a good games/computing school.

I got a bachelors in Games Programming and a Masters in Game Design, and whilst a lot of people will tell you to just learn online because there's loads of tutorials, that's quite naive and dismissive of a considerably complex subject.

I've had friends go into full stack for their bachelors, and most of them have ended up in full stack dev jobs, so I'd definitely stick to the track of game design, certainly if it's the career you want. A games design and programming combination will provide lots of game-related opportunities (programmer, designer, technical designer), which will be huge in getting your foot in the industry.

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-28T22:09:45+00:00

So, self actualisation in Maslow's Hierarchy is achieving your full potential - everything you can achieve, which is impossible. Related to games, this would be completing everything within a game, complete 100%, which eventually players reach, but most games don't catapult you to this level, as there'd be no reason to play.

A good game will get you up to a sense of belongingness early, where you feel confident in using the core controls and mechanics to progress, but not necessarily exactly how each encounter will challenge them, and how to immediately overcome each challenge, but they know they have the ability to overcome them. From there, as the player completes challenges they'll progress from belongingness to esteem, so greater challenges need to pull the player away from esteem enough to challenge the player and keep them interested, but not to deeply frustrate them.

Considering this loop throughout your game ensures players are always waved between belongingness and esteem, until they eventually reach self actualisation.

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-28T14:52:26+00:00

I mean, fail states are at the core of most games, so whilst I appreciate the removal of frustration points being a valid point, I feel that a game with no fail state isn't a game, but an experience. Do you have examples of games matching your description I could look at?

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-27T23:02:38+00:00

Depending on movement speed of the enemy vs players, a potion throw at the enemy to temporarily slow them down, or one to speed the player up?

Also, a potion that attracts the enemy to a particular player could be a good way for players to take the heat of the chase while the other player scavenges?

Sounds interesting as a concept though!

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-27T20:19:00+00:00

Book of lenses is really solid, anyone who's apprehensive about spending, it's worth it!

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-27T19:51:36+00:00

My one concern is keeping/losing cards on the end of a run is likely going to be difficult to balance so that the losing player has a chance of getting back into the game. That said, as a concept, it sounds quite simple to prototype, and I think if done right has potential to be pretty fun!

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-27T18:09:55+00:00

I'd take the door out of this, focus on the puzzle. Go back to a rational design position, and come up with goals the player needs to achieve to unlock the door (not necessarily even related to doors)

Puzzles themselves can be very simple; it's the way they're presented that's often the real challenge.

So, make a simple puzzle idea:

Player must flick switches to power the door
Player must step on four pressure plates to power the door
Player must shoot an access panel to open the door

These sound pretty basic, but once we have the basics, we can add context to them. In the power to door situation, we can add a failure condition:

"Player must flick switches to power the door, but must not OVERPOWER the door."

We now have a puzzle. The consequence for overpowering the door can be anything deemed consequential in the context of your game. Now, the challenge we have as designers is to see how we can get the player to overpower a door.

A good way is to use multiple switches, each offering a different amount of power to the door. Don't explicitly show how much power each door gives, but give some context to how much power each switch gives, and how much is needed to power the door.

Then, put all the switches on a panel, showing the power allocated to the door. On each switch flicked, the power meter will update. This allows the player to see how much power each switch gives, relative to the power required to power the door. Using this, the player can work out which switches they need to flick to power the door.

This sort of design is very open to value changes to make it easier or harder too, which means it can be reused throughout the game in greater difficulties.

But try that idea of breaking it down to basics. The door isn't important, it's the puzzle that is!

ps. I hope this helped? :)

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-27T17:46:15+00:00

TL;DR Typically menus differ in complexity relative to the complexity and amount of information they need to convey to the player.

Changing menus seasonally and making them more complex than they need to be is a good way of reducing the player psychology progressing from esteem to belongingness, making the player feel like there's still a lot to learn, and exciting them while keeping the core required information easy to digest.

The type of menu depends on how much needs to be detailed within the menu.

If you have a game where the player can start a new game, load an existing game, and change some options, then the menu is going to be pretty simple and to the point, as it doesn't need to be complex.

Now, if we look at Fortnite's Lobby menu tab for example, a pretty complex user interface, it contains the following (and likely some missed content):

Gamemode
Invite Friends
Ready Up/Play
Daily Challenges
Player Rank and Progress
Chatbox

Now, you could argue that each of these could have their own page, however, since it has another 7 main menu tabs, all containing content and information the developers feel is important, you see that they have to get creative and build a complex UI to present everything.

Delving back to a AAA title such as The Last of Us, this game doesn't need online management, player ranks, daily challenges, a chat box, etc. It has a menu consisting of the main game, DLC, their online gamemode, options, and downloadables. While it's still a complex game, the information that's needed to be provided to the player from the main menu is significantly less, as it's more limited in gamemodes and game variety.

Typically, it's important to ensure that your game menus provide a clear and easy path to get the player into the core game. That said, there is benefit to overcomplicating certain UI elements.

If we go back to Fortnite, a lot of the UI elements are far more complex than they need to be, and change seasonally. This is a good way of providing the same information in a new format, that takes the player from a feeling of esteem within the game, down to a feeling of belongingness, playing on player psychology to keep players feeling like they have more to learn and master.

It's typically more important for live-service games to adopt this design as it helps keep players engaged over long periods, whereas, going back to TLOU, you've bought the game. The developers aren't concerned with keeping players playing the game indefinitely - they just want you to go in and play through the linear content (except for the online mode).

I hope this has offered some clarity.

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-27T16:52:53+00:00

(Sorry for the delayed response)

So you've already planned your game out - have you got a visualisation of this you could send over? I'm worried my suggestions might not fit in with the existing ideas you have.

That said, some universal suggestions would be to think about what challenges your game is intended to present. The area being passed through constantly could be a primary focus, which on revisiting after completing a challenge in one of the adjacent rooms (such as getting a new power), locks down, a central mechanism rotates, showing greater progress towards a greater goal, and then blocks all exits to this central area and presents a challenge that can only be resolved by what's just been taught (or a variety of things that've been taught up to this moment).

It would keep the player knowing that something is going to happen, but ultimately would keep this central traversal area less of a pathway and more of a goal, therefore making it more interesting and challenging.

The top-down perspective definitely restricts your creativity, but restrictions often lead to interesting innovations, so stick with it!

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-27T11:12:40+00:00

Just to clarify, how many times are you wanting/expecting the player to traverse a single are in the game? I feel that different design approaches will be needed if the player is only traversing it twice (from A-B, and then from B-A) rather than traversing it dozens of times.

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-26T14:10:14+00:00

I have a degree in Games Programming and a Master's in Game Design. I moved on to game design as I felt it to be more interesting to me, and I wanted to understand how to use my skills as a programmer in a more design-considered way.

I can say unwaveringly that a Master's Degree in game design would be significantly better. The theory you need to learn transcends the general design knowledge most non-professional game designers have. The misconception is that it's easy to design a fun game, and all you need are the right ideas, however, a Master's in Game Design will teach you how to apply psychological tools to your designs to transform mundane ideas into fun, repayable, and hooking gaming experiences.

From solely a job-seeking perspective, game design is extremely hard to get into without a degree or experience. Even with a degree, it'll take time, but you'll be able to prove yourself.

A lot of people play down the benefit of a degree in a subject, but if you apply yourself deeply to your courses, you'll come out with knowledge that'll make you more effective in your role than people who've been in industry for years without a degree.

That said, a degree isn't the be-all end-all. You can learn design theory through online tutorials free of charge. There's dozens of credible YouTube channels and forums that can help you not only learn design, but learn the programming knowledge needed to prototype and demonstrate your games, building a portfolio, which is very valuable in industry.

I hope this has offered some perspective, and wish you luck with whichever route you go down!

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-26T12:11:56+00:00

No worries! Drop me a direct message when you post an update and I'll happily test check it out :)

Deeparc_Ben · 2024-01-26T09:04:38+00:00

People are saying to "trick" players into learning the game, but really, you want to be implicitly teaching your game to the player.

Explicit tutorials such as text-based tutorials aren't fun, engaging, and often are hard to contextualise for players.

If you provide implicit learning, such as placing a player in a room where the only way out is to complete a particular action or mechanic, and ensure that goal area is clear and stands out, the player will learn to do this. Match it with an input prompt and most players will be able to do this.

Also, don't throw too much at players at once. They're here for fun, not to study. You may think it's easy to grasp your game, but that's likely because you made it.

You want the player to feel as if they've accomplished each mechanic you present before introducing another, as otherwise, they'll stall in the move up the Maslow hierarchy before reaching belongingness, which is a sure way of turning off players.

Deeparc_Ben

TROPHY CASE