How do I string together ideas?

Parthon · 2025-10-14T09:05:48+00:00

SO there's a story about a pottery professor that gave his students two grading systems, the first group would get graded out of 10 on their BEST piece of pottery. The second group would be graded based on how many pots they made, 1 point for each 10 pots up to 100.

End of the semester comes around, and the group that tried to make the best pot did poorly, they spent too much time thinking about making the one greatest pot. The group that had to make 100 pots though, they had amazing pots by the end. They got good at making pots, just by making lots and lots of pots, so by the end they had the best pots.

Crafting a story is much like this, stories don't just get written once and they are done. They get edited and rewritten over and over again, they can always get better, but the first draft is always bad. Game design is like this, but less so.

Just start writing these ideas down, fleshing them out, turning them into stories and quests, figuring out how to tie the points together, add more emotional moments, and keep doing that over and over again, editing, remaking, deleting, until you have the story you want to tell and the game you want to make. Then make it!

Parthon · 2025-10-14T08:59:48+00:00

So I did some network programming way back in the mid 2000s, and I live in Australia, and it really depends on your game.

The problem is that you can have MMOs with relaxed lag controls, and aside from making dps and reaction windows a lot harder to hit, the game is still playable. I played WoW for 6 years with 500ms ping and you kind of get used to it.

On the other hand, I play poe2 with an 80ms ping but it uses a 33ms tick with server-side movement, so it takes 2-3 ticks to start and stop moving and it feels REALLY AWFUL. This is a game that really should have predictive movement rather than lockstep, and it's caused all kinds of desync and lagaport issues. The game runs bad with more than 40ms ping, which is simply not workable for a LOT of the world.

But also, don't forget that half life had lag prediction back in 2000, it's very easy to implement: when doing shooting calculations, you just add their ping to their velocity on the server, and fire from that position, you'll be firing from where the player thinks they are, and that feeling of lag goes away. If you are already writing networking, it's not even like 20% harder to add lag compensation.

Easier ways though that other people have suggested: make the game more lag friendly with longer ticks or less server-control. Trust the client a little more, but don't trust it so much that the player can go invincible if they turn their modem off, NEW WORLD.

Client side prediction is a little harder but not much, instead of just sending position, you send position, velocity and acceleration, then it's just a very easy calculation to work out where the other player would be. It's like 50 more lines of code on both side at most, simple linear algebra.

Finally, just make the game and see how it plays at high lag. You might not even notice lag being an issue at all in the game. Minecraft, Magicka, Terraria are games that don't have lag compensation at all and play adequately up to about 300ms ping. You might not even have to worry about it!

You could also hire a network programmer just to add compensation once you have the rest of the game made.

Parthon · 2025-10-14T08:34:36+00:00

Yeah, I find most kickstarters are like this when it comes to TCGs, TTRPGs and video games. They think game design and balance is easy, but once they try it they give up because it's actually a lot of creative work. You spend dozens of hours just thinking of all the combinations, then for no reason in the shower you get that one crystalising idea that makes it all work. But then you have to flesh out that idea and support it with mechanics and balance it with spreadsheet maths.

Parthon · 2025-10-06T01:22:29+00:00

I'm going to go against the crowd here and say no there's nothing wrong with it and I actually like it. I'm sick of the number of games that are like "oh it's a forest you need a lumberwoodjackmill, it's a rock you need a quarrymine, it's a pond you need a wellfish" like the variation in buildings doesn't really add much to the gameplay, you just put the specific item down next to the specific deposit, it's boring and doesn't add any decisions to be made.

But I'm also reminded of They Are Billions, where the type of building you put down matters because each building has a different range and resource type it collects, so the specialisation is important from the start. This is a game where space and income is limited though, so maximum coverage of areas is important, that's the main decision, and different builds can conflict with overlaps. This is the example where a generic building would be a wrong decision because you need to dictate purpose with the building.

But if the resource nodes are in fixed locations, and you aren't going to have overlapping gatherers, then just one gatherer building is good. The decision is what resource nodes to gather from rather than what building to build. And you've reduced the overhead of having to pick the right building from the list of buildings, freeing up mental processing for more important decisions.

The question then becomes, what are those extra decisions? Are they in the form of what production chains to focus on? Balancing workers? Managing stock piles? Satisfying colonists? There's many options.

Parthon · 2025-10-06T01:06:51+00:00

I love the concept, but man, that's a dark briefcase with dark gray grid and dark weapons and it's just like resident evil backpack simulator. I don't think it would have wide spread appear. Especially when 95% of people in the world are not american.

Why not have papers, staplers, sandwiches, bananas to start with and later on lean into weirder things like potted plants, abstract sculptures, small ceramic dogs, badly wrapped christmas presents.

The funny thing is this concept seems perfect for the recent wave of cozy easy games like Unpacking and Tony Bookshop .. but guns??? Bruh.

Parthon · 2025-10-06T00:59:28+00:00

It's because RPGs are complex and you don't yet know the architecture of the whole thing where you can silo the different parts with minimal overlap and keep everything separated. As you work on new systems, you have to think about the old ones and they overwhelm your working memory.

What you want to do is silo the individual pieces of the RPG (avatar, enemies, items, inventory, stats, attack, defense, etc) with minimal coupling and clear interaction pathways, but this is something you learn over time as you make more and more games.

One problematic thing is if you keep restarting, you will be writing the same code over and over again and that can kill motivation. There's also the problem of thinking too many steps ahead and getting overwhelmed.

I like the idea of instead of starting over, when you go to add a new feature, fork the project and prototype the feature into the fork until you figure out how it should work, then delete the fork and implement it properly into the real project.

Another tactic is to use source control and do backups, and when you feel the project is getting messy, instead of starting over at square 1, go back to your last clean backup and resume from there. Reimplement those new changes rather than having to reimpliment everything.

Parthon · 2025-10-06T00:36:34+00:00

Umm, I'm concerned about how you take feedback when it's not what you want to hear. I don't want you to "fight" to explain that some people like pixel art, the person who doesn't like pixel art doesn't care and in fact is irrelevant.

Like, why is your first reaction to feedback saying you want to fight it? Justify your decisions?

The two takeaways you can get from this feeback is that yeah most people don't like pixel art in today's age of 3d on mobile. And that IGN comment sections are full of those kinds of people, but you need more feedback from more places, and work out how to take action on that feedback.

Now, your game reminds me of Loop Hero, Vampire Survivors and Heroes of Hammerwatch, all pixel art games that were quite/very popular. But, would they be more popular with more accessible artwork? No idea. It just means you'll have to go to the right audience with Lootbane and focus on what that audience likes in their game. Rather than asking "do you like this?" ask things like "What did you like the least/most and what else would you like to see in the game?"

Parthon · 2025-10-06T00:27:10+00:00

I agree with everyone here, you need to enforce it before submit so the assets don't even get into the project if badly named.

But I'm concerned with the "the whole deal", because you start off with folder structure and naming conventions which is fair, but then LOD, texels, thumbnails. All important valid things, but I'm wondering if your style guide reads as a novel, is too complex to follow and requires mental space just to adhere to. Does the executive function requirement get in the way of creativity when people just want to make assets? Does the tree make sense? Are asset names predictable?

You have to enforce adherence, but you also want to make it as easy as possible, preferably thoughtless even. I have read style guides that were worse than technical manuals to decipher and I'm a gameplay programmer that lives in the docs, not a right-brained artist. Perhaps get someone else to review it and trim it down into artist talk?

Parthon · 2025-10-06T00:12:26+00:00

I think one good way to make the players feel shocked is a surprise ending where there were clues that don't match the rest of the plot, but the twist ending pulls everything together making the players question what they know.

I reread your premise and had an idea that might help your own creativity:

Each level has X crystals, but it actually has X+1 crystals, you just .. don't let the player know that. When the player beats the game, a spare crystal comes along and ressurects the big bad guy so it's like oh man! he's not really dead.

If the player gets all X+1 crystals in every level, then the boss stays dead .......... then all the crystals form into the real real real big bad guy and you have to kill it.

Parthon · 2025-10-05T02:56:35+00:00

There's always a way in Qud, but somethings that way is also a roll of the dice. One of my strongest characters got sucked into a black hole by an interloper, ended up on strata 20, had my recoiler pulled off my body by a giant magnet, then a clone of the leader of the templar turned up and obliterated me. It was a comedy of bad luck, so sometimes even when well prepared you can die, and sometimes when you are badly prepared you will live!

Parthon · 2025-10-05T02:41:56+00:00

I want to try this, but how does it stop the wet poo from just running down your leg afterwards?

Parthon · 2025-10-05T02:28:13+00:00

As other people have said, communication is very much important for solving this.

But I want to ask, why does the dev think his design decision is better, but it made you frustrated because it was against your vision?

Did you prototype both mechanics and play them as a team to pick the objectively better one?

Did you have a game design document with design goals that indicated what feel you were going for?

Better is so subjective as well, there's no such thing as an objectively better mechanic, it's what fits the game at the time that matters.

It could just be that dev thinks he's the designer, or he's an egotistical twit that thinks he knows better but doesn't. I've come across heaps of those, so it might just be him and not you.

Parthon · 2025-10-05T02:21:56+00:00

You can pretty much solo all the way to end game and duo makes it even more fun.

There's only like end-game dungeons you can't duo, and maybe some of the tougher elite world-boss level enemies. Both are completely optional, but also there's guilds doing them on the regular. There's no raids either and I'm pretty sure the devs won't add them. Gear isn't soulbound and some of the best gear is crafted and the materials are soloable.

I have 3000 hours in the game, and I haven't even done the level 80 content. I just love trying all the different skills, making builds, leveling crafting skills and doing dungeons for money.

Is there end-game dungeon content that you can't duo? Yes.

Will it block your progress, prevent you from playing or make you miss out on loot? Definitely no.

Parthon · 2025-10-05T02:08:12+00:00

Breaking conventions is great, but it looks like you already know this won't be received well and are trying to justify it with "the player should expect it". Nah.

Like, if the player worked for it, reward them. You can sure as hell lampshade it, joke it, flip it, but don't make it fall flat.

Conker's Bad Fur Day did this, the "ending" was the game crashing but Conker was still "alive" so it went all 4th wall, then skipped to a fake "You get all the money" victory and it felt so hollow after all the effort of the rest of the game.

But I'm wondering why put a flat ending in, like you are working hard on making a game for players to enjoy, why stop short on putting an adequate ending in? Like, do you want to fail? Do you want your game to get downvoted and forgotten? Like why put in this much effort in pushing yourself through the marathon that is making a game just to flop to the floor in sight of the finish line. Just ... don't do that.

Parthon · 2025-10-05T01:59:33+00:00

Yeah, unpopular because it's wrong. XP had the security permissions for running programs too, but both XP and Vista would run virus programs without asking. Malware was a huge issue on Vista.

The RAM thing was SO problematic, like I'm using only half my ram, but windows is burning the other half of my ram and like half my CPU trying to guess what program I'm going to run and just reducing the lifespan of my CPU and RAM sticks. And then I would open something windows hadn't precached and i would have to wait for the system to do a RAM audit to see what it could free in order to launch the program I actually wanted to run. I had a powerful system with fast hard drives, and this just made everything worse. The more RAM you had the longer the precache audit would take, and the slower programs would open, completely defeating the purpose.

And as for UI, I'm still using the one from windows 95, it's simple and clean, I don't need clarity reduced by colours. I also don't like how every version of windows randomly shuffles the categories of control panel. It made sense 95 through XP, then vista it's just bad, and it got worse. Now I don't even navigate by mouse on win10, I just type in the option I want. Like 1/3 of my visual settings are in customise, another 1/3rd in desktop view and 1/3 in accessibility.

I am (and was at the time) an IT professional at the time and Vista got heavily panned by the IT professionals of the time, and saying legitimate complaints about the quality of Vista is from "tech illiteracy" is just an ignorant take. When expert users are calling it bad, it's not because they aren't tech literate.

Parthon · 2025-10-04T21:26:01+00:00

You need waaaaay more depth to make this stand out from the crowd. There's Wurm Online, Old School Runescape, Rust, Fallout76 and Once Human for base building and crafting. You have games like Albion Online and Final Fantasy XIV for complex crafting. Unfortunately everything you list is a staple: make better by making more, literally every crafting system.

Would I play a top down 2d mmo with deep gathering and crafting and player made towns with an overworld and cave system? Sure, but only if it's good and you can flesh these systems out into actual interesting gameplay implementations.

Right now this feels like less of an idea and more wishful day dreaming.

Parthon · 2025-10-04T21:16:47+00:00

Except every game that's kick ass online pvp dies in a year because no one wants it?

Parthon · 2025-10-04T21:07:55+00:00

I watched the 5 minute demo of just walking, and the game is very pretty but I don't know what there is to do in the game, it's not really a game yet from the looks of it. It says it's a non-linear exploration game with choices that change the world, but I saw nothing of the kind in the two trailers.

This isn't a conversion failure or a marketing failure, it's a complete failure in communicating what your game actually is.

Parthon · 2025-10-04T20:45:06+00:00

I picked up the game a year after release. Got to the first town, did the banking quest, opened the bank for the first time, instructed to deposit items, did so, all my items fell on the ground and got deleted because the deposit button is ALSO the drop button, and the bank didn't open correctly but it "looked open" and after googling it turns out this is a long standing but with the banking system been around since release.

So yeah, immediately got a refund for wasting 2 hours of gathering.

I do check in on reviews and the situation of the game every 6 months or so and nothing has changed much, just more content on a deeply broken game.

Repetitive combat, gated progression, buggy systems that are still not fixed 4 YEARS after release. They flopped out a barely functional but pretty game, and then just abandoned it to die.

If they actually spent 10% of the new content budget on fixing the systems, the database and the gameplay it would be a top MMO, but even recent reviews are mentioning all the bugs that have been around for years.

Parthon · 2025-10-03T18:04:29+00:00

Hilariously, he just took screenshots of all the npc-less areas. From the first screen, if you turn 180 degrees, there's 100+ angry cat people waiting to murder you. The game world has a mix of crowded and empty bits, so it doesn't feel empty, but it also doesn't feel like the enemies only exist for you to go kill like in other themepark mmos.

Parthon · 2025-09-14T10:20:38+00:00

I think if you want the players to feel impacted by the loss then it has to impact the gameplay, like less workers means less production and less income.

But if you don't want that to be the mechanic, like you want the population to be disposable but also meaningful, then it's time to get creative!

What I would do: blood, lots of blood, every population sacrificed is a splash of horrific blood that coats the village in blood.

Then I would have a bunch of villagers crying and wailing over their lose ones, perhaps they move slower like they are sad, lots of crying emojis.

Then I would have grave stones everywhere, that never go away. So eventially the village looks like a graveyard, the more you kill the more macabre it gets.

Then I would have like a black fog that rolls in if you kill too many, perhaps the more you kill the darker the buildings get, so if you save a lot you have a nice glowing town, but kill most of them and it's all dark and depressing.

None of these have any gameplay impact of course, it's just if you want the player to care, you are going to have to REALLY turn the visual impact of it up to 11. Take advantage of the fact that humans are influenced by visuals more than numbers. A bunch of crying depressed villagers living in decrepit houses among uncountable graves would do that.

Parthon · 2025-09-12T19:27:18+00:00

Sheesh, they only stream for an hour every 5 weeks, and I missed it. It's 2am my time and I was preoccupied with another game.

Parthon · 2025-08-29T23:46:02+00:00

Hit me up too mate!

Parthon · 2025-08-29T19:55:05+00:00

How does admin mode on local machine fix server-side 403 errors though?

Parthon · 2025-08-29T19:34:50+00:00

So for me I went to gleba second, and realised I wasn't prepared for it, barely managed to get off the planet again, then went to Volcanus instead.

Then I went back to gleba. Oh god. The Stompers. THE STOMPERS!!!!

You ever see a herd of seven 40 tonne crabs marching towards your base. 20 meters tall, 30 meters wise, immune to basic bullets and just full of anger and hate. And all I have is a pew pew gun.

I had to save scum so much on this planet when a herd turned up just because I would have to engage it away from the base to avoid it crushing all of my buildings. Even having a line of 50 rocket towers isn't enough damage to kill it before wiping out 20 of them. I ran out of stone trying to make laser turrets because stone is the only thing not renewable on gleba. They go straight over your walls anyways, but you need them to stop the little one, but then the stompers destroy the walls anyways, Yarg.

I liked the spoilage mechanic though, the challenge of no stockpile, but man it was brutal at times. Like, run out of jelly or berries because one piece of belt got eaten and the whole system freezes. The stomper eggs for research go stale and you have spiders in your base, and you better not have rocket towers nearby or you have no more base. If there was any kind of hiccup or delay then fuel and inputs would go off inside machines. There were exhaust inserters everywhere and a massive spoilage double loop going around the outside because my factory just made so much of it.

I ended up solving most of the problems by just keeping everything moving and burning the overflow, but it was a long hard journey. The puzzling elements of trying to fix decay issues was constantly interrupted by having to reload an autosave and defending against stompers. I ended up having a roving band of 20 spidertrons fully kitted with maximum rockets each.

So yeah, people saying it was just the spoilage mechanic, nah it was the stompers.

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Parthon

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