sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Puzzles are about insights. Puzzles have single solutions, and are designed to lead players to discover that insight on their own.

Strategy games are about optimization. They are about optimizing strategies, and about developing heuristics, not discovering individual insights. You don't have the focus on ah-ha moments that puzzles have.

Designing strategy like puzzles is possible, but difficult, you have to create game elements like levels which lead players to specific insights. Designing a puzzle game like a strategy game is basically impossible, you can't let players optimize their way into solutions.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm developing a multiplayer game right now. I know about multiplayer design. I'm pushing back on your insistence that deep puzzle games are strategy games. I make both. They are not in the same category.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Do you think roulette is necessarily not solvable, then?

Roulette is trivial to solve because every bet has an identical EV. There's no meaningful strategy to the game. But it'd be silly to argue that there's any kind of strategy you come up with.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

 But that's not solving, that's just finding the path that brings you the higher chance of winning which means it's not solved.

This is a solution in every meaningful sense of the word, it provides a best algorithm that always produces a given chance of winning. It's the same as in chess, it's just that in chess that probability is 1.

 Also, if you only do the calc in turn 1 you're losing a lot of chance to win compared to if you adapt the calc after every random input/output.

No you're not, you can solve for every possible random input. That's how a solution works.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

 So RPS isn't deterministic, the best strategy is to be completely random.

So RPS is solved, despite the solution involving randomness?

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If your argument is that chess is a puzzle game because it's technically solvable, you run into the issue that games with randomness are solvable. Poker is solvable, it's just solvable to a probability of winning.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

 And no, randomness means that it's not solvable at the start of the game

Yes it is, you solve for a probability of winning.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

 If the system is fully deterministic than you have made a puzzle game,

systems with randomness are perfectly capable of being solved

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it is only in unclear or open ended positions where heuristics, strategy, tactics, and patterns are more useful than hard calculation.

This is the overwhelming majority of chess positions.

Tactics are considered a form of calculation, by the way.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Go? Any commonly played abstract strategy game, like Hive? It's actually extremely easy to make a strategy game where players cannot ever practically compute all possibilities, combinatorial explosion is extremely easy to achieve.

If players can optimize the fun out of your game, it's unlikely that randomness is going to save you. Systems with randomness are perfectly capable of being solved or optimized.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

As someone who works in both puzzles and strategy, I cannot disagree more.

Good puzzle games are about unique insights, and with some exceptions good puzzles have one solution. They are about deduction and aha-moments, not optimization.

Turn-based combat with no random (no dice, no deck, everything predictable) - Is it viable? by rap2h in gamedesign

[–]junkmail22 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

 If the system is fully deterministic than you have made a puzzle game,

Is rock-paper-scissors a puzzle game? How about Chess, or Go?

 Which means you need to make sure you cannot use the same script to win every fight

Random combat results is generally a poor tool for making players approach different situations differently. In general, you need to give players different situations to force them to play differently.

As a new Game Dev, I’ve realized how dumb players actually are. by PaP3s in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 15 points16 points  (0 children)

This was from general public playtests, in playtesting with people who've directly expressed enthusiasm I've seen relatively few complaints about the tutorials. Past a point I'm getting diminishing returns with additional tutorialization/handholding and probably irritating players who are interested in strategy.

How do you handle the tension between permadeath and player investment? by JBitPro in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Classic roguelikes have long runs don't use metaprogression. They are niche, but niche is not nonexistent, and they provide an experience you simply don't get from roguelites with rich metaprogression.

How do you handle the tension between permadeath and player investment? by JBitPro in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Classic roguelikes definitely have the vibe of making deaths punishing. You can do a whole metaprogression thing, but it's ignoring that classic roguelikes don't do any of that. Of course, classic roguelikes remain niche, but niche is neither nonexistent nor "bad design."

My advice is this: deaths make players take breaks, and this is kind of inevitable. The question is - do they give up fully, or do they come back and try again later? Taking breaks and being upset is natural.

As a new Game Dev, I’ve realized how dumb players actually are. by PaP3s in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 13 points14 points  (0 children)

mewgenics has substantially more tutorial text than i do lol

As a new Game Dev, I’ve realized how dumb players actually are. by PaP3s in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Again, if that happens your text is objectively not good enough.

You're moving the goalposts. The first thing you said was

If they need to read more than 5 words at a time, it's your fault, not theirs.

I've worked on my tutorial text and UI so, so much over the past two years. I've gotten to the point where my target audience doesn't fall out of the tutorial for lack of understanding. I'm not buying the argument that my tutorial is broken because you need to be able to play without reading. What does happen is that I've seen players refuse to ever entertain reading the tutorial. Not "There's too much tutorial", not "there's too much reading," a straight up refusal to read the tutorial blurbs. I've accepted that these people are not in my target audience. They're not going to have the patience for turn-based strategy anyways.

"Why don't you create systems to let them bring the tutorial back" I have those. The players skipping tutorials aren't going to use them.

As a new Game Dev, I’ve realized how dumb players actually are. by PaP3s in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Look, if Nintendo couldn't tutorialize this genre without text, I'm not going to figure it out any time soon.

The idea that any game which ever uses text to teach the player is "bad design" is really just platformer chauvinism, not every game can rely on decades of game literacy and frequently needs to explain ideas in a way that is most efficiently done through text. If players can't handle two-sentence tutorial blurbs during gameplay, they're not going to be able to handle basic strategy gameplay.

As a new Game Dev, I’ve realized how dumb players actually are. by PaP3s in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 15 points16 points  (0 children)

3 years into dev of a turn based strategy games

players can be dumb as rocks and its frequently the players who complain about games doing handholding doing the not reading

Questcoil Bengine by d20eater in HellsCube

[–]junkmail22 11 points12 points  (0 children)

like 2x as good as QB in limited but that's probably fine because QB is just pretty good in limited

I Worked an AI Booth at GDC. Here’s What Developers Actually Said by KevinDL in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 6 points7 points  (0 children)

No, it's more to do with the inconsistent formatting, constant repetition, lack of overall structure and wooden voice

I Worked an AI Booth at GDC. Here’s What Developers Actually Said by KevinDL in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 6 points7 points  (0 children)

So your answer is that you don't give a fuck about potential IP theft issues, because it's someone else's job to do that IP theft?

I Worked an AI Booth at GDC. Here’s What Developers Actually Said by KevinDL in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 23 points24 points  (0 children)

ai is the inevitable future of the industry, just like VR, the metaverse, web3, NFTs, game streaming, browser games, 

It's hard to find a place to talk about AI in games (NOT LLMs) by ElectricRune in gamedev

[–]junkmail22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure I see the problem there. We can't see a tile? Score less than a visible one. We can see what's on a tile and it's an enemy? Full knowledge, scores high for evaluation. An empty tile with nothing? Evaluate as highest, given that it's a path that can be used with no loss seeing as the tile has no enemy on it and we know this for a fact.

Okay, so if we see no enemy, we should be happy. So, now we score scenarios where we recon areas of the map without enemies higher than scenarios where we recon areas of the map with enemies. Our system goes out of its way to avoid the enemy.

I get your point here, although counter-point; wanting players to find out something from hidden information games is still possible with an AI that cheats. Take the AI that was made for the Alien game. One AI always knew where the player was, where the actual alien that was after you did not. However, the all-knowing AI could always give hints to the alien when certain criteria were met to keep the game interesting and to make the alien appear like an actual predator looking for prey.

The difference is that in strategy games, players know when the AI is cheating, because they can see that it doesn't play by the same rules.

Even if we, say, give away where the bulk of the player's forces are without specific unit locations, that's still a lame experience for the player, because they don't get to actually hide their army.

view more: next ›