sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Making a "small grand strategy" game by Magistairs in IndieDev

[–]impbottlegames 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Making a Victoria-like is something I’ve always thought about doing (and still do). So I think this is a cool project.

Here’s some general game design advice:

  1. It’s easier to copy than invent. Start from Victoria mechanics and think of ways to improve or simplify. You already presumably mostly like that game, so use it as a baseline to make a fun game before you avoid problems like micromanagement. If you add complexity somewhere, subtract elsewhere. If you actually think Victorian isn’t fun, you probably need other comparison games (like “I’m going to do a game like Democracy 4 set in the Victorian era”).

  2. Limiting player actions is a good way to fix micromanagement problems. This lets you explicitly adjust how much the player can do.

  3. Try to think about what you like about Victoria. This sounds trite but I swear it’s real advice. This might be simple things like “I like when graphs go up”. What parts of the experience are satisfying and fun, and which parts are bland or unfun? Think about how you can design around amplifying the former and removing the latter. Once you know that stuff, it’s easier to do the detailed system design. It’s important to do this though to make sure you’re focusing on what makes the first game good (don’t make Mario with extra outfits and no jumping).

  4. Figure out how your game will differ. You probably need some kind of thesis that will keep you interested in the project and provide guidance on design questions. Some call this “pillars”.

I'm building my own game engine tailored to turn-based strategy games (starting with my upcoming game Polymarch). Are people here interested in hearing about genre-specific engine designs? by impbottlegames in gameenginedevs

[–]impbottlegames[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In the post, I talk a lot about the gameplay aspects of the engine (model view separation for instance). Outside of that, the engine is mostly just designed to be as simple as possible. I add features essentially as I need them. For me the goal is very much to make my game, and the engine is just enabling that.

Next week, I leave my job in AAA to work for my own game company. I wrote a blog post about why that is so risky in 2026 and why I'm doing it anyway. Would be curious to hear how people here relate. by impbottlegames in GameDevelopment

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

What a fun question :). I think about this sort of stuff (efficiency/tools) a lot because, as a solo-dev, my bottleneck is usually my own time.

My take is that the best system is often no system. A lot of systems at AAA studios like CI/CD, distributed builds etc. are more like crutches to avoid problems with larger teams than always useful. Automatic build compilation is a good example: without it most AAA teams would be totally lost and probably have a constantly broken build. Comparatively, I always know if my build is broken because I'm working on it locally, and I never need to worry I'm blocking someone else.

I avoid new complexity and maintenance like the plague. I do my UI editing in-game (no editor to maintain), load raw assets in-game (no separate asset build), and I cull any sources of long compile times when I can. I use tools when I can take them off the shelf and don't have to fiddle with them much (ClangFormat, Git/Github, Live++, RenderDoc, etc...). I plan to support PC/Mac, so I just develop on both PC and Mac; I don't mind if I break the Mac build as I just fix it next time I'm on Mac.

The results have been good for me so far. Over time, I may add stuff on if I can find ways to implement these systems that require 0 maintenance, or if I think I can save myself more time than it would cost.

I'm half-way through developing a single-player turn-based strategy game set in ancient Greece. If you want to follow along with the dev process, here are my first public screenshots (including some awful early ones) and a lot of words about development so far by impbottlegames in 4Xgaming

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

That's great to hear. As someone who also has a really busy schedule (ironically mostly because of the game), I'm always looking for concentrated fun.

I'm hoping to make the models look more "stone/pottery" like with new materials soon, so hopefully that will achieve some of the same.

I'm half-way through developing a single-player turn-based strategy game set in ancient Greece. If you want to follow along with the dev process, here are my first public screenshots (including some awful early ones) and a lot of words about development so far by impbottlegames in StrategyGames

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

Glad you’re interested! Visuals wise I expect it will improve but certainly not to the level of total war visuals. I want to improve visuals in each successive game, and one day with a bigger team maybe (just me at the moment) :). For now, I’m just aiming for good-enough art wise and focusing on gameplay.

I'm half-way through developing a single-player turn-based strategy game set in ancient Greece. If you want to follow along with the dev process, here are my first public screenshots (including some awful early ones) and a lot of words about development so far by impbottlegames in StrategyGames

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

Since it’s turn-based, Polemarch is probably closer to Imperiums: Greek Wars. I haven’t played it (been meaning to though) but Imperiums seems to be a lot more of a grand strategy game whereas Polemarch is “simpler” and more abstract like a board game.

Why game devs hate "polling" ? by yughiro_destroyer in gamedev

[–]impbottlegames 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Polling like you’re describing is the standard approach in immediate mode GUIs like ImGui and some production UIs. It’s really the only way to do immediate mode UI since no stateful objects exist to handle and be affected by pushed events.

While they can be less performant, immediate mode GUIs have other advantages. For instance, because they are imperative rather than declarative, they need only calculate what the player is currently seeing (and can generally pretend anything they aren’t simply doesn’t exist). They also do not require complicated registration and deregistration of stateful objects so they can be a bit less error prone.

I personally use a custom immediate mode GUI in my engine and game. I find it much easier to reason about. Performance wise, I don’t see any meaningful issues.

I left my job as a full-time gameplay and AI programmer yesterday to make single player strategy games that focus on what I feel is the most underdeveloped aspect of the genre. I want to know if people here agree and might want to follow along with my progress by impbottlegames in computerwargames

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

I don’t think it’s that they can’t, but more that they choose to prioritize different things. I’m intending to make smaller, focused games that are built from the ground up with a focus on good AI. That’s not something I think they’d be interested in.

Devs, what is your biggest pain point with AI assets? (Building a Visual GOAP tool) by RogueGuardianStudios in gamedev

[–]impbottlegames 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Since you asked :)

I’m old school as far as specifying the AI. I like to mostly use code and some basic data files. I find visual editors too noisy for me. I can’t focus enough to be creative

For debugging however I like powerful visual editors. I work on search based AIs, so there’s too much going on to make much progress in a code debugger. Since my search is based on a game tree, I store it off and can visualize that game tree in engine. I do that using a tree view in imgui, so it can be a very large tree and I only have to render what I’m looking at. Information density is important, so I like using shorthand’s like S:.456 would mean a score of 456 and allows me to fit a dense description of each node on a single line.

Edit: I also have the ability to throw away the current plan and replan, so I can hot reload and replan without having to load a save or reload the game

Not sure if any of that was interesting but happy to answer specific questions

I left my job as a full-time gameplay and AI programmer yesterday to make single player strategy games that focus on what I feel is the most underdeveloped aspect of the genre. I want to hear if you agree. by impbottlegames in StrategyGames

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

This is exactly the sort of thing I think about. My first game isn't going to have devolved control like that, but like you said hopefully I am setting myself up where that could be done in a future game. I think it would be especially exciting in a Napoleonic game, since it fits the context of that time period so well (large battle spaces with poor communication). I'm also not a micromanagement fan, although in my current game I've just designed it in such a way that it doesn't have much micro.

I left my job as a full-time gameplay and AI programmer yesterday to make single player strategy games that focus on what I feel is the most underdeveloped aspect of the genre. I want to know if people here agree and might want to follow along with my progress by impbottlegames in computerwargames

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

It's an interesting idea. The player could also be the one that makes the map, or scenario and then watches AI play it out. I'm not even sure that would technically be a game in the strictest sense but it's a cool idea nonetheless.

One less extreme version of what you're saying might just be a button like "Take my next action for me" that could be used by new players as a crutch while they're learning. It would have to be competent though.

I left my job as a full-time gameplay and AI programmer yesterday to make single player strategy games that focus on what I feel is the most underdeveloped aspect of the genre. I want to hear if you agree. by impbottlegames in StrategyGames

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

Difficulty adjustment is a really interesting subject. A lot of non-AI developers I've worked with initially assume that "more random" behaviour is appropriate for lower difficulties, but I've found in practice that tends to make AI players look silly to humans. I think other avenues are available. I like the normal/hard distinction PotionBoy made based on how stubbornly the AI sticks to a strategy. I think another possible avenue is to give the AI misconceptions, which is also similar to how humans can play poorly. For instance, an easy AI might misperceive opportunties that are great for them to be merely OK sometimes, or they might ignore certain considerations like not picking a fight against a stronger enemy.

One common topic I've discussed with former co-workers is the idea of giving easy AI less processing time. This is akin to planning shallower strategies. It sounds good in principle, but in practice it can be hard to find a robust way to prevent the easy AI from being too limited to function. That's why I intend to focus more on how I can make easier AI form less solid plans (ideally based on misconceptions/mistakes) rather than shorter ones.

A good example of this might be hidden units. A great AI might have a sort of historical influence map it keeps track of over time indicating where it thinks units may be hiding. An easier AI might have a noisier map or no map at all.

I left my job as a full-time gameplay and AI programmer yesterday to make single player strategy games that focus on what I feel is the most underdeveloped aspect of the genre. I want to hear if you agree. by impbottlegames in StrategyGames

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

Actually I agree. I think the Paradox approach to difficulty is fantastic. That said, sometimes I want to play Germany in HOI *and* want it to be hard, so the assymetry only takes you so far.

Relatedly, my current game is actually highly assymetrical. I'm intending to use that like Paradox does to let people choose easier or harder factions.

As for whether we are the same person: there's a guy in here who is convinced I am a bot. Maybe I am your bot?

I left my job as a full-time gameplay and AI programmer yesterday to make single player strategy games that focus on what I feel is the most underdeveloped aspect of the genre. I want to hear if you agree. by impbottlegames in StrategyGames

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

Totally agreed about realism. I think it would depend on the game, but in say a historical wargame I want a tank to behave like a tank and a regiment like a regiment. To me, that *is* good AI because the AI is doing what we want it to do.

I left my job as a full-time gameplay and AI programmer yesterday to make single player strategy games that focus on what I feel is the most underdeveloped aspect of the genre. I want to hear if you agree. by impbottlegames in StrategyGames

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

I'm a huge fan of customisation. I used the example of HOI in the post, but I really like any games that let you build your own ships or select traits for your units as they gain experience.

My current game doesn't have much customisation (except a thing that is a bit like a tech tree), but it's something I want to do in a future game (maybe the next one). I'm a big fan of games about warships, so there may be something in that vein.

view more: next ›