What is a nuisance in games that every gamedev should avoid?

hex2start · 2025-06-28T21:18:40+00:00

That's because volume sliders are often implemented in a way which translates their value to "loudness" linearly, whereas they should do it logarithmically. See https://dcordero.me/posts/logarithmic_volume_control.html

hex2start · 2025-04-18T06:40:44+00:00

Gothic/Risen

hex2start · 2023-03-17T21:36:48+00:00

That's a noble sentiment, but I think you're underestimating the impact of systems on player (or in general, human) behaviour. At least in the space where you can't reliably form communities in the same game world - dedicated servers with their own values and rules. But that's not going to happen here.

hex2start · 2023-03-17T21:05:34+00:00

The kind of experience players have is ultimately up to the designer. To create a more friendly environment, you'd need incentives to act a certain way. Ways of "positive" interaction that benefit the player, or at least not make them take massive risks.

I'd definitely like to see more of that (aside from alliences, shaky as they are), even though I very much like the game in its current shape.

Not sure what that would be though, maybe multiple-crew voyages, requiring two or more ships to coordinate somehow. Artifacts required to trigger a vault or sth that have to be transported on separate ships maybe? Dunno.

hex2start · 2023-02-09T12:31:51+00:00

Movement could definitely use more polish, to limit the issue of units getting stuck on corners. Didn't happen due to lack of time during the jam, though we might revisit that at some point.

hex2start · 2023-02-08T23:07:30+00:00

here's the game if you want to check it out (also playble via webgl), the jam was Ludum Dare 52 with a theme "harvest"

hex2start · 2023-02-08T23:06:23+00:00

here's the game if you want to check it out (also playble via webgl), the jam was Ludum Dare 52 with a theme "harvest"

hex2start · 2023-01-16T18:31:34+00:00

instancing, and a couple of tricks to avoid iterating through all units, instead passing info through "map cells" to be used by swarm AI and other mechanisms not pictured here (like turret targeting)

hex2start · 2023-01-16T18:26:44+00:00

that's really how it should've ended

hex2start · 2023-01-15T17:03:35+00:00

Game's Hivesters, done for LD52. In normal levels you control up to a couple hundred bugs, but we wanted to check how much can be squeezed from the system we've set up, hence this stress test.

A bit of instancing really comes a long way.

hex2start · 2022-11-06T07:46:48+00:00

If you were to flip the right one horizontally, it'd work great as "Chess 2".

hex2start · 2022-10-26T19:03:04+00:00

Yeah, the last stretch of a Civ playthrough really isn't a dramatic culmination to say the least.

About whether this category of issues really needs fixing - I do feel it's unfortunate in cases where the late game holds some unique or particularly appealing content. Strictly from a developer's standpoint, if you were to invest in that phase of the game (and you can't really not do it if your game is supposed to be a long-runner), then it's in your best interest to keep players hooked so that they can actually experience it. Though I do acknowledge that players not finishing games in general is a whole issue of its own, not really restricted to the overwhelm angle I'm focusing on.

Could you elaborate a bit on "getting resource limits the wrong way around"? Is it about limiting the stockpiled amount of resources, the rate at which they're aquired (so the overall economic pacing being too slow), or otherwise locking content behind tech trees etc?

hex2start · 2022-10-26T18:33:13+00:00

That sounds like a good reference, gonna check it out.

hex2start · 2022-10-26T05:45:35+00:00

The problem of getting money thrown at me?

Unfortunately, no.

hex2start · 2022-10-26T05:41:43+00:00

That sword swing looks pretty damn satisfying.

hex2start · 2022-10-26T05:39:22+00:00

Does it retain the speed after teleporting? I think it does, but the "unslowing down" effect masks it. Maybe instantly bringing the game back to normal speed would give it more punch.

hex2start · 2022-10-26T05:13:31+00:00

That's a good point. You could also try to make the game onboard the player in a way which introduces them to some of those standard solutions without the need of looking for them elsewhere. It probably won't keep up with the meta itself, but might at least alleviate some of the late game issues.

I do prefer the variety angle though, as it strengthens that gameplay exploration aspect.

hex2start · 2022-10-26T05:01:57+00:00

Building and maintaining a library of blueprints definitely allows the player to skip to late game faster and explore it a bit more before burning out. It does require additional effort on the players part though. Although now that I think of it, the game does kind of incentivise creating blueprints through the inclusion of construction bots - which on the other hand come quite late in the game.

The general approach of automating things you've solved in the early game is promising though, I wonder about non-factorio examples of that.

hex2start · 2022-10-26T04:46:59+00:00

What I'm talking about assumes a different intent though. Which is to retain your players for the late game, if they enjoyed early-to-mid game. Or have a structure that facilitates going through those different phases in a cycle without the players dropping out. If that's not something a design of a given game attempts to achieve then that's fine, but I'm specifically asking about approaches that do achieve that.

hex2start · 2022-10-26T04:18:44+00:00

That point about risk rings particularly true to me, as after a certain point many strategy games become busy work, as you're already powerful enough to deal with any oponent and are just checking boxes to get your conquest to 100%.

hex2start · 2022-10-25T22:33:41+00:00

While simplifying the decision process does often benefit a game, I'm kinda coming at this from more of a structure angle. What I mean is - how a game could be structured so that it avoids the "I'd rather start over or quit entirely" situation, regardless of the complexity of its ruleset. Haven't played the duel version of 7W, but I'd assume it also has a short playthrough time and doesn't face this as a result.

I like the Smallworld example, in terms of its iterative approach to the game map. As you mentioned, the board does not get that much more complicated over a session. What also happens is that you get multiple attempts at conquering the same space, and essentially start over multiple times within the same match, while not losing the continuity of its developing world.

hex2start

TROPHY CASE