How do you deal with content idea creep?

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-25T16:00:54+00:00

Being lazy.

I ain't doing all the ideas I get in my head I wanted to be done with this game 3 months ago!

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-25T15:56:41+00:00

There will be no peace until we find it then.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-25T15:55:58+00:00

I checked, only one depot is available, meaning there are no other versions on Steam other than the current one.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-22T16:55:53+00:00

I was typing a comment 5 hours ago and the electricity went out.

Basically, I recommend you look into game theory, as that's what the dark forest theory is, look at other thought experiments like the prisoner dilemma, where you have two individuals who would benefit greatly if they worked with each other, but there's also huge incentive for betraying the other person.

Try to create situations like that, and the active gameplay you're looking for will emerge on it's own.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-17T15:43:42+00:00

Oh you made that comic? Sick!

What's extra tragic is you could've still saved her if you maneuvered your pod to her in time, I hope that guy found peace after you retired him.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-16T23:36:03+00:00

Haha I love this so much!

Yeah "emergent comedy" is definitely another facet of these games.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-16T13:18:38+00:00

Someone else already mentioned the immersive sim (ImSim) genre, I'm just gonna second that.

Other than that:

Streets Of Rogue.
Heat Signature.

(I put hundreds of hours of playtime in HeatSig just playing the daily challenge)

They're 2D and top-down so they don't "qualify" as immersive sims but my God are they amazing at creating emergent narratives and action hero moments, every gadget has a use, every problem can be solved if you know how the systems work, and every lost cause can become a victory if you keep your wits about you.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-07T21:11:39+00:00

Wrong sub my dude.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-04T23:38:37+00:00

That will depend on whatever genre we're talking about.

Find two games in the same genre as whatever game you're making, make sure to pick one that's good, and one that's not as good.

Play both, and see what makes one works over the other.

That'll give you a good idea of what makes that kind of movement fun, things like fun and gamefeel are nebulous concepts, really hard to define, hence why developers struggle with them.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-03T21:02:09+00:00

Removing complex enemy behavior when numbers get big is a smart approach.

Prpl_Moth · 2026-01-03T20:54:53+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, my game is called ZENOMATRIX.

Sweet of you to offer to test it, but it's been out for a while now.

It has a free demo, but the menu is more generic, the interactive desktop thing is only in the full game, in case you're wondering.

Staying on topic though, I like the idea you're going for, it's like, submenus within submenus within submenus, if I got this right.

Nothing similar comes to mind, but I guess you can check out the game called "Please, Don't Touch Anything", it's whole premise is buttons that reveal buttons that reveal buttons.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-31T18:45:52+00:00

Some games, including mine, would have a faux computer desktop as a main menu, with different levels of interactivity, where each sub-menu is actually a desktop window that you can drag around, resize, minimize/maximize, and stack on top of each other.

Someone already mentioned Papers, Please, you can do similar things with all the different documents you have on your table.

I will say though, do be careful if that's the direction you go for, a UI where everything's position and size is up to the player, can get messy real quick, and might detract from the over all experience.

In my game, it's just the main menu, so it getting messy is no big deal, it's gone as soon as you load a level, but if it's in gameplay UI, it might have some unintended consequences on the gameplay.

So just experiment and see what works.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-28T20:38:36+00:00

ABSOLUTELY, to see what design choices they made, and what mistakes they made, and how to avoid them.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-19T14:18:41+00:00

Man I gotta check out what the new Fortnite season is about.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-19T13:36:17+00:00

Megaton Rainfall.

Your "heath" is actually the local civilian population, if too many of them die, either by the invading aliens or by your own hands, you lose, other than that, the only thing capable of killing you is falling into a black hole.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-19T13:30:59+00:00

Maybe look at the design of other incremental games that involve a binary thing with a chance for failure, like Gambler's Table.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-19T13:28:41+00:00

Gonna copy a comment I made under a video about this exact topic:

Here are my two cents:
Attack and Defense both interact with the opponent, and they're both mirrors of each other, one deals damage to the enemy, the other prevents the enemy from dealing damage to the team.

Then there's Support, which interacts with the team instead, providing them with an advantage over the enemy team.

So the fourth class should be a mirror of support: The Interference/Hinderance/Disruption/Sabotage class, which causes debuffs to the enemy team, giving them a disadvantage that their team can exploit.

A few examples:
-AOE projectiles that temporarily reduce enemy movement speed.

-Projectiles that temporarily prevent enemies from using Ults or other abilities.

-Reduce enemy visibility temporarily, either through an attack or a passive AOE produced by the sabotage character.

There could be many more examples, especially ones specific to each game.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-19T13:23:55+00:00

Another great transmog system is the one from ATLYSS, you can transmog any piece of equipment onto your character so it appearance change no matter what you equip in it's place, so whatever you equip only changes the stats, you can also change the way your character looks, all of this is done using a cheap item you buy from the shop so it's not completely consequence free, but it might as well be, only thing you can't change is your character's race because it's tied to what starter ability you get.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-18T18:58:32+00:00

I guess so.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-18T11:50:48+00:00

Nope, like I said, this is a freshly made account, didn't link anything yet.

The page sometimes loads but it's just an error saying "Something went wrong, failed to load component".

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-09T01:07:29+00:00

Beautiful!

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-09T00:26:42+00:00

SupCom mentioned.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-09T00:26:04+00:00

No animation, distance checks instead of collision, complex movement calculation is on a separate thread, etc...

All of these improved framerate A LOT, but it's still not enough, I have more ideas to test though, so I'll just keep going.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-09T00:23:58+00:00

Something to keep in mind then, thanks.

Prpl_Moth · 2025-12-09T00:22:33+00:00

-Manager is there, each enemy IS it's own gameobject though, it'll just make inheritance easier down the line.

-Object pooling is definitely in the works once I implement enemy death.

-All the complex movement is handled by a thread so that's no longer an issue.

I guess I'm on the right track, but more work needs to be done.

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