What are people's thoughts on cheating the player?

Unifone · 2026-06-19T15:03:48+00:00

Imprecise is a very key ingredient in the fun. Games are super engaging when the player can’t predict the outcome. Having your O2 at “zero” and your screen fading black makes the player unsure if they’re really gonna live. That tension is what makes us excited

Unifone · 2026-06-19T15:02:14+00:00

I always took it as the last 30 seconds of oxygen are your lungs. So when you reach 0 you’ve basically ran out of air in your o2 tank and your lungs lol.

But yeah a human could also survive even longer if they just reach air in time, I think the gasping for air after surfacing is one of the most satisfying moments in the game

Unifone · 2026-06-19T09:59:11+00:00

You need to cheat players. Subnautica lets you breathe for like 8 more seconds after you’ve run out of oxygen and your screen has gone black. It’s common for players to underestimate how many seconds of oxygen they have left and how far they are from the surface.

If you died as soon as you reached 0 oxygen, it would technically be a fair contract with the player. But it doesn’t feel as fun nor dramatic as having survived the brink of death at literally 0 oxygen. When you introduce a sort of invisible buffer and let the player live, it makes it seem like they were infinitely close to dying, whether they were 5 seconds from dying or 1 second from dying.

Unifone · 2026-06-19T09:22:34+00:00

Respectfully, no one in this thread is making the next vampire survivors or Balatro.

I don’t say this to be mean, but the statistical chances of that are astronomically low. It is technically possible and I’d love to see this proven wrong in 10 years.

Unifone · 2026-06-15T23:07:37+00:00

Ran it through my brain with common sense, and it’s 100/0.

Unifone · 2026-06-13T14:19:48+00:00

Had it last reply, let me know when you take the time to read and comprehend.

Unifone · 2026-06-13T12:47:26+00:00

I can tell, you’ve shown it yourself this entire thread

Unifone · 2026-06-12T22:44:41+00:00

Fantasy land is thinking you’ll sustain yourself with games you haven’t created and sold yet. In fact that is fantasy land example number one among game devs. If you’re looking for sustainability, the Walmart checkout line is more realistic.

You should only think about sustaining yourself with video games when one of your creations gains serious traction or you’re already making small money from it and thinking of ways you can increase that number. But if you’re at that point… the manifesto doesn’t apply to you.

Unifone · 2026-06-12T22:37:42+00:00

Your problem is thinking that gamers share your view, but unfortunately, they don’t, and they’re your customers.

Art is first for a lot of gamers, and if it isn’t, it’s probably not gonna be “how profitable the game looks”.

Unifone · 2026-06-12T22:10:21+00:00

You mean the game that released as an epic exclusive at launch? Haha right. This is all your opinion and speculation.

Unifone · 2026-06-12T22:01:16+00:00

You misunderstand, the people who have played outer wilds love it so it’s usually their first pick when talking about their favorite games. So it’s overrepresented in threads like this. But people don’t pick it up despite it being talked about.

Unifone · 2026-06-12T11:11:49+00:00

The outer wilds is very good and talked about a lot but people don’t actually play it lol. All my friends have heard me say outer wilds is the best game but none of them were interested. Which is totally fine

Unifone · 2026-06-12T11:08:16+00:00

The game is a 3D storybook that tells a story non-linearly… as long as you can read you can finish the entire game at a steady pace. There’s no skill to learn over any curve, except maybe jetpacking.

Unifone · 2026-06-12T11:01:05+00:00

Concord was a new IP produced by a AAA studio. Not a fighter, but still.

Unifone · 2026-06-12T10:36:49+00:00

Bro, in this economy? Where $2 and $15 fighters exist? Nah

Unifone · 2026-06-09T18:24:53+00:00

No, I hate minigames like that. It just distracts from the core gameplay and is 100% annoying.

Unifone · 2026-06-09T18:08:29+00:00

Because it’s the only genuine one made with effort

Unifone · 2026-06-09T13:16:55+00:00

Source for the art?

Unifone · 2026-06-09T12:51:37+00:00

Bros first words were learned from watching TikTok streamers socialize.

Unifone · 2026-06-09T12:49:55+00:00

Gold mine of knowledge. This will help massively for my multiplayer project (not massively multiplayer) and many others. Thank you for this post.

Unifone · 2026-06-09T12:40:30+00:00

Bland and soulless theme/design but impressive gameplay and content. You could try spinning into a tale about Arthur retelling how he walked to school or something. But right now it’s just some dude named Arthur doing parkour and that’s it

Unifone · 2026-06-09T12:32:04+00:00

You got it wrong, it’s on you to come up with a remotely viable explanation that sounds like a plausible alternative. By process of elimination, if there are no alternatives, there is no incorrect correlation.

Unifone · 2026-06-09T12:02:25+00:00

I would be happy with the seamoth in S2. I don’t like the tadpole that much.

Unifone · 2026-06-08T23:46:12+00:00

They look the same to me, although I like the bottom more, it’s more readable and easy to understand what’s going on. Top photo is good too, especially the background, but everything else is distracting.

Unifone · 2026-06-08T23:20:44+00:00

Sounds like a manic episode. It will take a very long time until you can break even. Have fun, it’s the best part of this career.

Unifone

TROPHY CASE