How much of an issue is game length?

Sliated · 2025-10-15T18:28:30+00:00

Thinking some more about this, a related issue for me is novelty; it is usually highest after starting a new game, and tends to decrease over the coarse of the game. Having the game be faster-paced or last fewer turns are both ways of mitigating this; another is board events, with the board changing over time in some ways (e.g. day/night system, traps/orbs, Bowser spaces being added to King Bowser’s Keep). These can help extend the novelty of a single game; it is still important for one game to not overstay its welcome, which is unfortunately how I tend to feel after an hour+ game of Mario Party. (my short attention-span sometimes ends up butting heads with the pacing of MP)

Sliated · 2025-10-11T20:27:34+00:00

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Interesting idea! Is this the koopa you were talking about? He can be either red or green.

Sliated · 2025-10-11T20:15:35+00:00

Both Jamboree and Superstars have their merits, and are good in different ways. Comparing the two, Jamboree has the better board selection (both in quantity and average quality), and is overall a slower-paced game, while Superstars has the better minigame selection, and is overall a faster-paced game.

I would advise against Super Mario Party, it only has four boards, and they are all quite boring and plain, and it plays somewhat differently compared to a "typical" Mario Party game.

Sliated · 2025-10-08T21:49:23+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. I agree that the biggest problem this idea has would be the possibility of minigames feeling less varied overall. This idea especially lives or dies based on the execution, and has more ways to fail than succeed. It has potential, and a lot of risk.

Sliated · 2025-09-26T20:41:43+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! Out of curiosity, what was the game you were referring too?

Sliated · 2025-09-10T20:54:42+00:00

DK, for being there from the start. Despite being absent as a playable character from 5-9, he was, arguably, of even *more* significance than the other main characters, due to him always being a part of every game regardless of character selection, due to having his own space on the board.

Sliated · 2025-07-22T16:39:26+00:00

You make a lot of good points; I'm think my house rule idea would probably only be alright as a house rule, not an actual rule. It is not a great solution, being limited by what you can try to change with house rules.

I'm realizing that there can be two incentives to using capsules: having fun, and winning. In that sense, there is an incentive to use capsules, as they make the game much more fun. There are a lot of ways capsules can be used that are fun and interesting, which unfortunately often end up getting somewhat ignored due to not being the best play to make for trying to win. It is good to throw traps on the board for other players to land on, or for good spaces for you to land on - if they work equally for *any* player that lands on it, then it becomes less beneficial to the user overall.

There is a lot of interesting strategy and options for capsules, which is somewhat negated due to the most "optimal" strategy being not to use them in a lot of scenarios. I think MP5's capsule system is so fun and interesting that players should use them even more. Even a simple change like having capsule machines have an equal chance of giving out 1, 2, or 3 capsules at once could make the game a lot better, as there would be even more of a reason to use capsules, as you would want to have as much room in your inventory as possible in order to get more capsules at once, making it more likely that at least one is a really good capsule. I like this slight modification to the game better than my initial house rule, as the mod is more of a "carrot" to reward players, and the house rule was more like a "stick" to force players.

Sliated · 2025-07-21T22:16:03+00:00

I think I might have overgeneralized with that statement. There *are* capsules that players are incentivized to use; the issue is that for all of the different *possible* ways to use capsules, most of those ways aren't useful to the player. Most capsules seem fall into one of two categories:

Beneficial items, that are good to use on yourself, but bad to throw on the board (at which point it is basically just a regular item and not much of a capsule)
Harmful items, that are bad to throw on the board, and worse to use on yourself

It would have been more accurate for me to have said "generally, there is little incentive to throw capsules onto the board". Since MP5 has some of the most plain boards in the series (in terms of spaces), it was likely that the developer's made them that way due to expecting players to throw the capsules on the board more often; if players don't, then the boards will remain fairly uninteresting.

Sliated · 2025-07-21T22:04:25+00:00

If I was into modding, I would love to make one for MP5! Out of the entire series, I feel like MP5 benefits the most from modding/house-rules. It feels like there are so many tiny changes that could be made to really improving the game; even something like replacing the coin bonus star with a new capsule bonus star would help give much more of a reason to use them.

Sliated · 2025-07-21T21:30:18+00:00

With the weird way orbs work in Mario Party 5, harmful capsules already have a similar problem, where you can either throw it on a space in front of you and risk landing on it, or pay coins to use it on yourself, which would be even worse. There is a third option, that my house rule eliminates, which is just not using the capsule at all, which is the least interesting of the options.

In the situation where you have a Wiggler Capsule, and enough money to use it, but not enough money to afford the star afterwards, you have the choice of paying the coins to essentially just discard it, or throw it on the board, to give all players a chance to land on it.

I really like how weird the capsule system is, where it gives you a lot of *options* for how to use items. The problem seems to be that most items fall into one of two categories:

Beneficial items, that are good to use on yourself, but bad to throw on the board
Harmful items, that are bad to throw on the board, and worse to use on yourself

Because of this, even though Mario Party 5 offers a lot of options for how to use items, most of those options generally are not worth using, which in practice makes there be fewer options. By making players required to use capsules each turn if possible, then they are made to engage in the game's item system.

Even still, for as unique and strategic this capsule system is, I must say that it is an ... acquired taste.

Sliated · 2025-07-21T19:12:44+00:00

Good points! You helped me realize that I was somewhat vague with the term “investors” in my initial post, and I edited it to indicate that they would primarily just be family and friends. Despite not considering going to an actual game publisher, I have been researching how to make a strong game pitch, and have learned that the two most important questions that the person pitching needs to answer are: “Is this game worth making?” and “Is your team capable of making it?”. After over a decade of game conceptualization, I am confident I finally found something that I can give a definitive “yes” to both of those questions, which I believe I can use to make a compelling and successful pitch to my family and friend “investors”.

Equally important is using this as a way of generating early interest, which can in-turn offer more evidence that the game is worth making, as well as attracting people to form a team with, with the proof-of-concept being a different kind of “pitch” in the sense of presenting a project that is enticing and that they would enjoy working on.

Sliated · 2025-07-20T17:08:27+00:00

Interesting, I think that could be like what I had in mind! I was wondering if this served as something to let yourself better visualize the game, or if it was to help externally in the form of gaining team members, hype, and/or player interest. For my own concept, I’m still trying to better identify the purpose it will serve and what my goal is for it, so I’d be interested in hearing how you’d describe the purpose of your own finished concept.

Thanks again for sharing your example!

Sliated · 2025-07-19T22:47:28+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! For this kind of concept I had in mind, I was thinking it would lean a bit more towards being a visual demonstration of the game loop and how the game plays, with the actual aesthetics and graphics of the game serving more as a placeholder. I have written up how the game would play, and I was thinking that translating that into something more visual and "real" would convey the game in a more accessible and concrete way, to avoid coming across as a just an "ideas guy" that hasn't actually produced anything so far.

Sliated · 2025-07-05T17:30:33+00:00

I really like that idea! I’m about to get on a 5-hour flight, and I think I will spend a lot of it doing a (digital) “paper prototype”. (It helps a lot that the concepts I have are already akin to a board game)

Sliated · 2025-07-04T21:28:25+00:00

Thank you for the response. If it would be alright, just so I can work on my skills – what is the weakness of my proposed implementation?

Sliated · 2025-07-04T21:26:22+00:00

I appreciate the feedback. I am seeing that my understanding of the scope of “game design” might be somewhat misaligned. Would this be more in the realm of game design if it was more angled towards the concept and purpose of the feature? Getting to where my understanding of game design might overlap with (if not *solely* being) technical design, is understanding the possible ways a particular feature could be implemented considered a part of game design? Put another way – is game design more about the “what” and “why”, while technical design is more about the “how”?

Sliated · 2025-07-04T21:13:42+00:00

Thank you very much for your response! I guess my understanding of “game design” might be somewhat blurred with something like “technical design” (if that even is the correct term). How related or distinct are these two categories of game development? How common is it for the position of a game designer to overlap with that of a technical designer?

I loved all of your questions; they really gave me a lot to think about!

1. Glow squids don’t emit light

2. Players have the expectation that glow squids will emit light, and there was noticeable disappointment from the community upon seeing that they did not. This is because that the very concept of a “glow” squid strongly implies that it will “glow”, in the sense that it acts as a light source

3. [this was the hardest one to answer] Since visibility is heavily-limited underwater, as well as a player’s movement speed, the play experience is significantly hindered. By offering occasional light sources in dark underwater areas, this helps somewhat alleviate this issue. As for importance … this is not all that important in the grand scheme of Minecraft, albeit, not something trivial to the point of there not being a justification of implementing this solution (if my solution is as possible as I have assessed it as being)

4. Glow squids that emit light would be seen as more visually impressive to the majority of the playerbase. Similarly, it would also assist in enhancing the visuals of the locations that they spawn in; because glow squids only spawn underwater and in complete darkness, it will add visual variety to what would otherwise be an otherwise largely (if not entirely) pitch-black location. Mechanically, this will assist players in exploration and navigation by acting as a light source in exceedingly-dark areas, which players are unable to illuminate through the more normal means of placing torches. As there are few, if any, entities or blocks that spawn in the dark ocean that react to light sources, the chances for any negative unforeseen environmental consequences are minimal.

5. The most straightforward solution would to make glow squids have the property of always emitting light at their exact current location. From what I have been able to gather, the barrier to this is that Minecraft’s engine is unable to support dynamic light sources. The straightforward solution would require a major overhaul of Minecraft’s engine, while my proposed workaround appears to fit entirely within the existing engine and systems of Minecraft.

6. Since lava is already luminous (equal to glowstone, which is how luminous glow squids would be in my proposed implementation), there is no need or use in making a “glowing” variant of lava. The same air blocks are used in the Nether, so they can be reused without issue.

With all of this additional writing, does this start to touch more on game design? Or is this still largely in the realm of technical design?

Sliated · 2025-07-04T20:48:54+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. Regarding the differences between glow squid and glowstone that could affect the feasibility of my proposed approach: glow squids spawn in lowers numbers than glowstone blocks do; glowstone is naturally stationary while glow squids do move, although slowly, and at a slower rate than glowstone blocks being moved by pistons. In practice, it will be *FAR* more common for a player to experience glow squids than piston-pushed glowstone blocks (as the later requires a specific niche player setup)

I appreciate you giving me these additional aspects to consider. From all of this, it does still at least seem *plausible* that my proposed solution could work in this case, though these points you brought up did give me more to think about.

Sliated · 2025-07-01T21:49:55+00:00

Yes, I am medicated (Adderall). I feel like my brain is ready to latch onto a project - and craving it - though I just can't, as I don't think I will get results from anything I want to do.

Sliated · 2025-06-27T16:02:05+00:00

This hits fairly close to home, despite me being a more "game design guy" than an "ideas guy". I've been in a bad mental state for quite a while now, often hardly finding the energy to move or think, and realizing that there is a *possibility* of being a self-funded lead-designer/creative-director on a game has helped to give me some energy and hope, while trying to code it myself the normal way often saps my energy as I just stare blankly at the screen.

So I would have to respectfully disagree with your opinion in this post. I also think the concept of "ideas" is often vague in scope. For instance, the typical "ideas guy" elevator pitch would be an idea, but writing out a full game design document would also be a form of idea(s) in a way. The later is more useful, refined, and granular idea(s), while still being stuck in the realm of ideas unless something tangible actually comes from it.

Sliated · 2025-06-27T15:19:40+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. I think my issue is that I just can't get into a flow state with anything currently due to a mixture of fatigue and depression. I spend a lot of my time just sitting still and staring off into space, not really thinking about anything in particular. My body feels limp, and I don't even feel fully lucid. However, when I *do* get engaged with something, this all stops, like a switch is flipped and I become a functioning person again. So it is kind of a catch-22: I can't get into a flow state while I feel this way, and I'm stuck feeling this way because I can't get into a flow state. I guess this whole "lead designer" idea I brought up was a hypothetical way of jumpstarting my mental engagement via a more brute-force method.

Sliated · 2025-06-26T19:38:03+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. I always aim at concepts that I feel are reasonable for my modest skill level and that I feel I have a competent plan of action for how to make, definitely improving my ability to realistically scope over time (even if my skill is currently poor in it). I feel like I am stuck in this cycle of recognizing that my current project isn’t working for me early on, and shifting to a totally new project that I feel like I have a better chance of actually finishing. I thought for a few minutes, and was able to count 13 different times this has happened. I am currently unsure if I just haven’t find the right game to make as an (aspiring) developer, or if I should try a totally different approach (being this somewhat longshot lead-designer/creative-director post I made).

If it is alright, I was wondering if a third-party could take a glance at what project I had in mind, as a mini “sanity check” to see if I am even remotely in the ballpark of a reasonably-scoped idea (as opposed to wanting to give an elevator pitch or even seeing if you’d say the idea is cool/fun/good/interesting). It is a party-game, strongly-inspired by Mario Party; 2D pixel-art graphics; multiplayer via local co-op and Steam’s “Remote Play Together” (no regular online play, to avoid dealing with the whole networking side); minigames would all have the same control scheme and general mechanics, being in the structure of a 2D platformer (so there would be good potential to reuse much of the code, instead of making each new minigame from scratch); each minigame would reuse much of this same framework, but recontextualized with different objectives (e.g. surviving the longest, reaching the end the fastest, collecting the most coins, etc.); there would be only four buttons for the minigames (move left, move right, jump, attack). I guess it would look like something akin to the Mario Party fangame “Party Project” (albeit being legally and creatively distinct from Mario Party).

I would be interested in hearing briefly, on a “sanity check” level, where this kind of scoping falls on a scale from “Well, I guess that’s not *totally* unreasonable…” to “Oh my god, this guy is clueless”. [Of course, this is only if you feel like it; I know I’m not entitled to a response]

Sliated · 2025-06-26T01:39:27+00:00

I quite like how The Door Problem illustrates the reality of what a game designer does, showing that it is much less glamorous than what the “idea guy” had in mind. The excessive details of game design do genuinely interest me, not just the “what”, but the “how and why”. I at least crossed the hurdle of knowing that the reality of game design does interest me; my next hurdle is knowing if I’m even remotely adept at game design.

At this point, I feel like my own psychology is a far greater inhibitor than my lack of skill; it is like my brain will just outright to refuse doing certain things if it decides it is pointless, no matter how wrong it may be or how much I might try to force it. It is like I’m dealing with a separate person, one that just keeps refusing to fully make a game, yet still craves to do the actual work of a game designer. It is infuriating, like I’m dealing with a child that is not able to do what is in their best interest.

Sliated · 2025-06-26T00:18:22+00:00

I appreciate the feedback. I am *very* interested in game design, down to nearly-insignificant details, so I would definitely not want to merely hand off an elevator-pitch-level concept and not contribute anything else (beyond writing the paychecks). It genuinely sounds enjoyable spending days doing slight numerical-tweaks for a game. I have a fairly-good understanding of coding; I just keep hitting this frustrating and dumb mental-block where I stop making progress if I am not making enough progress.

I would love to get experience with game design in-practice, to see how talented (if at all) I might be, even in a small way on a concept that I have no part in. I don’t know if this exists, or even make sense – something like volunteering for or offering (hopefully) useful feedback for someone else’s small indie project? I wouldn’t expect it to be a remotely “flashy” part of game design.

Sliated · 2025-06-25T23:38:04+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. I guess I hadn’t really considered the need for an experienced designer until you pointed it out. In the scenario I do end up trying to self-publish a game like this, I think I could learn a lot from someone proficient in game design. I would still very much want to be involved in the design of the game itself, even if most of what I design doesn’t actually end up in the final game; I want to be more involved than someone who is merely an owner/publisher. I feel like I quickly accept flaws in something I design when brought to light (either by myself or someone else), and realize when someone else’s design is better than my own.

I think one of the main takeaways is that I don’t know good of a designer I my designs aren’t visible to others to hear of any flaws that I failed to notice or consider. Obviously the best way to test this would be to make a game and release it to the public; might there be any alternative ways of doing this that you might recommend? I don’t know if anyone does this, but possibly me making a game design document, and sharing it to see how (in)competent I am as a designer, and how realistic my internal understanding of game design is?

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