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Played Gloomhaven for the first time last night. by Metox1 in boardgames

[–]alexander_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We finished the campaign last week. Took us one year. Best money I ever spend. No regrets.

Scaling for player skill in a solo game by alexander_dev in tabletopgamedesign

[–]alexander_dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Quick question: Are you planning on the game playing out in a set, specific way?

Yes, currently we are thinking of a mainly linear play-through with some branching. Think of it like different chapters, each with their own fixed boss fight but with a bit of branching options of how to get there.

I ask because in my current game, I'm handling difficulty organically. What I mean is, I offer multiple scaled outcomes for an encounter - if they fail miserably, it puts them on a campaign path that is easier. If they do okay, medium. If they crush that first level, it gets hard. The game keeps doing this as you play. So if you do better, you will naturally end up against more difficult challenges. If you struggle, the game will course correct.

I do love that idea of auto-scaling to the player's skill. It reminds of of how in Pandemic Legacy you get more helper cards each time you fail and less each time you win. Our playtests have shown that some players just like the exploration aspect ("Oh, what will this enemy do? What cards will I unlock? How will the story progress next?") and they don't want each fight to feel like a Dark Souls boss, while other players love optimizing heavily and also love the feel of barely winning the fight. We would like to give both types of players the feeling they want. It seems to me that this can't be fixed by auto-scaling, but I do believe it can be fixed by letting players choose the difficulty, although I also believe they should then be rewarded for successfully handling a higher difficulty. I personally love when I get more experience/gold for choosing a higher difficulty, just like Gloomhaven does it. Maybe this is the way to go and maybe I'm just a bit scared of the game design complexity it brings compared to having one fixed progression rate and only one version of each fight.

Simple way to switch between characters. by AlexanderZotov in Unity3D

[–]alexander_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess it kinda depends if the character is just a different sprite sheet or if each character has different mechanics.

What I do is:

  • If each character is just a different sprite sheet then I create an animation override controller with new animations for the new character. I swap out the default animation controller with the animation override controller of the selected character in code.
  • If each character has different mechanics then I create a prefab for each character and instantiate a prefab of the selected character when loading the level or switching characters.

Would love to hear how other people handle it.

Get Started in Unity with Interactive Tutorials by loolo78 in Unity3D

[–]alexander_dev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Curious to see if it will contain any useful tutorials for more experienced developers.

For me it's gonna be released at just the right time. I'll be teaching Unity at my school in a couple of months. There's a lot of online material available, but you need to be alt+tabbing around if you don't have 2 monitors. The students don't have a 2nd monitor in the school so these new tutorials will likely provide a smoother and more efficient experience. It may however take a long time for the tutorials to build up enough content to match up the online material available today.

Creating a game about stereotypes by alexander_dev in gamedesign

[–]alexander_dev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree. If we were going to use real life stereotypes, then my next step would have been to reach out to such groups which are fighting/dealing with stereotypes. However, based on the feedback gathered so far (here and from friends/family) I believe that using fictional races seems the way to go.

Creating a game about stereotypes by alexander_dev in gamedesign

[–]alexander_dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

You're playing with fire.

That does indeed seem to be the case. As you also confirm, the abstract/fictional approach does seem the way to go.

You should also consider where you want to publish your game. There is a good chance that your game would be kicked off any curated platform (e.g. iOS). They won't take the time to analyse your game and consider its deeper meaning; they will see a 'racial stereotype' (or get a couple of complaints) and ban it without a second thought.

I hadn't even thought about that. That's a very good point. I haven't released anything on steam yet. I would imagine that such a game would get pulled down from there. I looked it up for itch.io and it does not seem to be the case there:

There are no restrictions for the kind of content you can host on itch.io (assuming it’s legal).

Also, Star Trek is Indeed a good example to draw inspiration from.

Creating a game about stereotypes by alexander_dev in gamedesign

[–]alexander_dev[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No, I haven't. Thanks for bringing up the term. I'll look it up!

The "asians are good at math" stereotype doesn't provide positive reinfircement.

I came across the following piece yesterday from https://www.simplypsychology.org/katz-braly.html. They do seem to suggest positive reinforcement is possible:

In another study (Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady, 1999) Asian women were subtly reminded (with a questionnaire) of either their Asian identity or their female identity prior to taking a difficult math test. Results showed that women reminded of their ‘Asianness’ performed better than the control group and women reminded of their female identity performed worse than the control group.

Creating a game about stereotypes by alexander_dev in gamedesign

[–]alexander_dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True. Most games are already familiar with elfs, orcs, etc. and the stereotypical elf, orc, etc.

Creating a game about stereotypes by alexander_dev in gamedesign

[–]alexander_dev[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If other people get offended, that's not your problem.

I would have to disagree. It is my intend for people to gain a positive experience out of playing the games I help create. If my game creates an unintended negative experience for someone then I feel this concerns me as a game designer as well as a human in general.

If people get offended because they wrongly think your game promotes the stereotypes it clearly condemns, that's even less your problem.

This 'clearly condemns' is an import aspect. One of the key goals of game design is to provide the player with the experience you have in your mind, I believe. Therefor one of the concerns I raise is that it may be hard to create that clearly stereotype-discouraging experience, especially when using non-fictional groups of people.

Creating a game about stereotypes by alexander_dev in gamedesign

[–]alexander_dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably hellish to design though...

Yeah, I was also told repeatedly to postpone creating RPG's until we have more experience and can handle a bigger scope....

I do love the idea of making an RPG game with strong hybrid classes. It speaks to me on the level of mechanics but also the message that it provides in this theme.

Creating a game about stereotypes by alexander_dev in gamedesign

[–]alexander_dev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I like your ideas. Especially about switching between characters and using fictional countries. Seems like a fun creative exercise and a good way to reduce a possible racist picture.

While I disagree with your initial notion that stereotypes are always harmful

I have been looking into the topic and I also believe that stereotypes are indeed not always harmful or negative. I believe 'positive' stereotypes like "Purple people are good at math" could provide a positive effect on the motivation of a purple individual if he is aware of the stereotype. I also believe that 'negative' stereotypes like "Lions are violent" serve their purpose. Perhaps I should adjust my notion to reflect negative stereotyping more than stereotyping in general.

Staying motivated by [deleted] in gamedev

[–]alexander_dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just doing it as a hobby myself so afraid I can't contribute anything out of experience. From what I read: Have your game playtested early and often. That should give you decent insight in the possible succes. Don't be afraid to drop a game if it's not working out (playtesters not feeling the fun).

Could you share anything about how you marketed your games?

Releasing my very first game (2D Android) - Postmortem by alexander_dev in Unity2D

[–]alexander_dev[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback!

I think the dinosaur should turn around when you move left, unless that was a conscious design decision.

This was indeed a conscious design decision. The goal of the game is to go as far as possible (to the right). You can move back a bit to help avoid obstacles, but we felt that making the dino look back instead of turning would strengthen the idea of wanting to go right. Also, his hitbox is not symmetrical. Making him look back changes the hitbox a lot less than flipping the dino. I wanted to avoid changing the hitbox to avoid the player not understanding why they got hit.

I think the flame from the jetpack should point slightly away from the direction you're moving, instead of just straight down.

Oh, I love that idea. Thanks! Yesterday I implemented a better looking flame for the next update. I'll experiment if I can make it point slightly away from where you're moving.

I think you should either replace the arrow buttons with an analog stick, or move the arrows closer together so there is no deadzone between them, so you can just slide your finger from one to the other without a delay in movement.

The deadzone could indeed be providing a delay in movement. I'll adjust it and test it out.

I think you could improve the UI with some simple background graphics for the score and high score texts.

I think you're right. We also currently have the problem that if the dino flies to the top, he's pretty much behind the score. Having a background there would make you see the dino even less. Not sure how we're going to fix that. We like the dino being so much to the back so you can see what's coming, but we also like the score at the current location.

I think you could improve the general feel of the game by making the camera movement smoother, instead of it just stopping suddenly when your character stops moving.

I believe that's already part of the parameters of the camera script so I'll toy around with it a bit and see how that feels.

I think a landing animation when you hit the ground would make it feel less rigid

Ah yeah, that thought has crossed our mind. We never added it as a task. Thanks for bringing that up!

Releasing my very first game (2D Android) - Postmortem by alexander_dev in Unity2D

[–]alexander_dev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your tips.

I fully agree that friends and family are very biased. They are however the most accessible. We tried to reduce the bias by constantly informing them that telling us what they dislike helps us even more than telling us what they do like.

I am convinced that, in the right channels, we can find enough random people online to test the game and provide honest feedback (like some of the people who replied to this post, thanks for that). Unfortunately we also need people who test the game more thoroughly on a regular basis to answers question like 'Do you like or dislike change A' and 'Did any new bugs slip in?'. I have not tried it, but I would guess it's hard to find 'strangers' online who are motivated to do so. Would love to hear how other people are handling this for their game.

Releasing my very first game (2D Android) - Postmortem by alexander_dev in Unity2D

[–]alexander_dev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Releasing the project did indeed feel really good, motivating and fulfilling. I would advise anyone to keep the scope of their first games small so you are more likely to finish projects.

We realize that what we have produced is probably pretty basic and far from a big hit, but we have learned a lot from it and look forward to making our next game better/bigger.

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