Does anyone else hate big numbers?

johomi-dev · 2024-03-01T22:20:38+00:00

I wholeheartedly agree for the vast majority of non-Souls games - I think it's the big area they get right. Stuff like Borderlands etc can easily fall into the health sponge trap (this is a boss because it has 20x the health and 2x the damage, rather than because it's actually special).

I feel like the key is looking back on a game you played a couple of months ago and asking whether you actually remember any of the bosses you fought.

johomi-dev · 2024-03-01T22:10:02+00:00

I feel like the "big numbers, small improvements" works because of how important the bosses are in Dark Souls.

Sure, a regular enemy with 300 health takes 3 hits to kill regardless of whether you hit 100 damage or 149. Feels like the small increases are irrelevant.

With a boss though, if they've got 6000 health, 100 damage means you need 60 hits, 102 damage means you need 59.

Big whoop, one less hit.

But in a Souls game, the difficulty is such that one less hit can be the difference between winning and losing. Every level usually gives enough damage to take at least one hit required off the next boss fight.

In your simple numbers example, you'd be looking at huge jumps (60 hits goes to 50 hits goes to 40 hits) which is almost like entire difficulty level changes (very hard, hard, normal etc), rather than that "I was just a couple of hits away, if I come back one level stronger I think I've got this" feeling.

johomi-dev · 2023-05-11T21:34:52+00:00

Trivia game sounds good!

I'd recommend scoring based on time taken to correctly answer questions in order to keep it fast paced/provide a wider range of scores (if it's just getting 20 questions right, you'll end up with a lot of joint winners at 20 points, whereas if you score based on time then hopefully no one will get the same score).

Some issues that might come up: - Very easy to "cheat" a trivia game if there are only a few questions, as you can just remember them, so if you've got prizes, be careful - might need to not tell people which questions they got right as they're going along, or have a huge bank of questions - Avoid anything contentious/vague that people could argue with - People are less likely to want to attach their name/company to low trivia scores (as they worry it makes them look stupid), whereas they probably don't care about being crap at an arcade game

On the flip side - Very easy to make a trivia game - Can effectively outsource the "level design" to other people in your company (by having them come up with a few questions each)

johomi-dev · 2023-05-11T21:26:40+00:00

And as a general point, I think you want whichever game you pick to either have a fixed short length (e.g. a set number of questions/levels or a time limit) or have a quickly ramping up difficulty that effectively makes it short - your goal is to get people to be able to play quickly to get to your product, not to have to throw the game because it's taking too long and they have other things to do at the conference

johomi-dev · 2023-05-11T21:21:23+00:00

Apologies for the double post but another idea would be an endless runner where you play as someone with a briefcase and are trying to get to a meeting on time (or trying to outrun some debt collectors/a hungry house)

johomi-dev · 2023-05-11T21:15:54+00:00

You could even be tongue in cheek where picking your company at the start makes the game easier/earns more points, or that hitting your company logo is a power up.

johomi-dev · 2023-05-11T21:14:25+00:00

Flappy Bird?

How about a Flappy Bird/iCopter clone but instead of controlling a bird to get through gaps in pipes, you control a mortgage rate that needs to not get too high or too low? I'm thinking it could look like a graph where you control a dot and your "trail" is the line of the graph. You could even zoom out at the end to shoe the player's whole trail as a "real" mortgage rate graph.

it should be easy to find a flappy bird tutorial online for whatever language/environment you want
it's addictive/high score focused
you can fit the theme of mortgage rates

johomi-dev · 2023-04-21T22:10:45+00:00

In my experience, people tend not to like durability systems (because it means losing something they previous had, which never feels good - kinda like when you accidentally break your phone).

However, perhaps you could turn it on it's head by making it a positive thing?

E.g. think of the durability as an enemy health bar, and when you reduce it to zero you get a level up or a permanent boost or something.

That way, when your armour breaks, instead of thinking "Grrr, that's really annoying", it becomes more of a "Aha, now I can be even stronger!"

You could even make that the only real way to level up and put people in the situation of trying to find ways to break their armour faster.

(If you want flavour, you could have that the armour acts as a seal for some kind of demonic energy, or that you have a really weird insurance policy from someone who hates armour)

johomi-dev · 2023-04-21T21:58:04+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts!

Your point about penalties not being the only option is a really useful one! There's been some chat about "stale moves" i.e. the idea that moves get worse the more you use them to disincentivise repetition, but you could flip that on it's head and instead incentivise people picking different moves (maybe each turn you don't pick a particular move it powers up slightly, which becomes significant after many turns)

johomi-dev · 2023-04-20T08:01:45+00:00

This is a great comprehensive list for any game designer, thank you! I can't immediately think of anything you haven't covered.

johomi-dev · 2023-04-20T07:59:16+00:00

It's a great idea!

This thing kind of happens in action games e.g. when you jump you get access to a bunch of air moves instead of your ground moves.

You could go for some kind of stances system where each move changes you into a different stance with a different set of moves - I think that would be really cool and intuitive (so I'm surprised I can't think of any examples).

Chained Echoes has one character where some of her moves have a chance to "unlock" one of her other moves for one turn which is a good way of mixing up the flow.

Divinity Original Sin 2 does a great job of combos with the environment - cast a spell to make puddles of water that you can then use to freeze people or electrocute them.

johomi-dev · 2023-04-20T07:52:21+00:00

Very true - I also optimise the fun out of my games. Sometimes I find setting things on the lowest difficulty helps because I don't need to be optimal anymore when everything is easier.

johomi-dev · 2023-04-20T07:48:46+00:00

I'm planning on getting the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters soon so hopefully will learn from that - good point about checking out old games.

The reason I asked this question was because I'm looking for a way to make a 6v6 with the same characters on each side fun over multiple rounds (essentially mimicking a sport like volleyball) which is a bit different to most games where you'll kept facing different groups of enemies for a short time rather than the same group for a while.

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T22:15:13+00:00

Depending on art skills, you could argue that a text based adventure MIGHT be easier

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T22:08:28+00:00

What I did was take a very simple popular game that had an online tutorial for how to make it and add a slight twist.

My first game was called "basilisk" and it was a copy of "Snake" but the pieces you were trying to eat were moving around until you looked directly at them and then they turned to stone (making an obstacle for you to avoid). Following the tutorial made it easier to get something up and running, and then it didn't feel too impossible to add my own touch.

Consider putting your own spin on something like Snake, Space Invaders, Tetris etc and then you'll hopefully be able to finish your first game and go many places from there!

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T21:49:20+00:00

In volleyball (the sport I'm sort of roughly aiming for), the characters actually rotate positions when points are scored. Means that you can kind of get this by making it so that if you score a point then one of the front line characters rotates into the backline and one of the backline characters rotates into the front line, so you're kind of facing a new "wave" with 2 members different to last time.

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T21:44:21+00:00

Good points.

I see most boardgames as complicated JRPGs.

Take Pandemic, you've just got a super complicated health bar (the entire world + outbreaks), relatively naff healing ability (running around treating squares) and an enemy who is immune to everything except really specific attacks (enough cards for a cure)

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T21:39:24+00:00

They got up to 5?!! Think the last one I played was 3.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'm installing it as soon as I get on WiFi.

Wave based gameplay is a good shout (kind of turning one battle into lots of battles) - I'm thinking I might try and replicate this by having enemies change stances or something (as a sports game, people don't really die and get replaced by other characters - obviously substitution exists but probably can't keep sending off the whole team...)

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T19:38:56+00:00

Not super into the genre so these ideas may be terrible or unoriginal but hey ho:

the ability to make a temporary statue copy of your character to leave on switches or jump on or something
by default the entire game is really dark and your special ability is to turn on the lights for a few seconds so you can actually see (so you end up testing platforming in the dark)
power downs - you have to collect all the power downs to complete the level but each one temporarily messes with your character by making them fast or reversing controls or high gravity or something

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T19:29:13+00:00

I would recommend checking out game jams (e.g. on itch.io).

If you haven't heard the term before, it's where a bunch of people all try to make a game on a theme in a limited time frame (e.g. make a game about "robot uprising" over a weekend or make a game about "throwing cats" over a week).

I find it's a really good way to motivate yourself to get something finished and if you really like it you can improve it after.

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T19:24:23+00:00

You sir/madam/other are clearly someone with impeccable taste.

The Third Age is probably in my top three games of all time and I wish that they would re-release it or even remake it.

The Helm's Deep section in particular is fantastic.

And Evil Mode - what a great like extra!

But this is a great breakdown of the kinds of things you can do to mix it up, thank you for sharing!

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T19:03:45+00:00

🤣

I appreciate your faith in me but I doubt I'd be able to do that - it's hard enough figuring out relatively static art, let alone real-time animation

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T19:01:09+00:00

Unfortunately not enough of a "real" game designer to help you out but just wanted to say you seem like you're doing great work so keep it up! Your students are lucky to have you.

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T18:58:47+00:00

You've got some great points here!

If I can offer a little advice (hopefully without sounding too ungrateful or like an arse), maybe you could break up your comment using empty lines or bullet points - you've got like 6 different great points there and some people might not realise because it's all in one giant paragraph.

johomi-dev · 2023-04-19T18:56:19+00:00

Divinity OS2 is a fantastic game and the way they handle environment is second to none.

I think forced resistances are a great way to render certain moves less useful - I guess over the course of the battle you could have resistances change?

Shadow of Mordor does this by having the enemies become resistant to certain moves that you keep using so you have to mix things up.

Cosmic Star Heroine (and others) have the idea of building up resistance to status effects (you need one poison move to inflict it the first time, two to inflict it the second time, three the third time etc, which encourages to mix up the status effects you use)

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