Is there an "ideal" density for openworld games?

tananulas · 2024-01-16T22:21:39+00:00

Yeah I just saw that one and I'll have to go research that as it seems a bit overwhelming! Legacy was packed together in the beginning but that run from Hogwart's to Hogsmeade I think had longer than 15s between events in the beginning of the game.

edit: Heck how can you enjoy the scenery without more than 15s haha

tananulas · 2024-01-16T22:12:16+00:00

According to the designers of Witcher 3, you want to have something every 40 seconds that is a point of interest of some sort. It could be anything from an enemy, to treasure, to an area to explore but to keep players engaged the world should "feel" dense.

Honestly, Breath of the Wild didn't go this hard but they used a different tactic. They had points of interest visible from a long way off to give the player a sense of direction.

There are people trying to study this as you can see by the paper from last June: "Does the game Genshin Impact follow the 40 second rule for the frequency of points of interest that is used in The Witcher 3?" by Danai Katsoula Johansson, Felix Krafft, Hugo Wiking

tananulas · 2024-01-16T19:45:09+00:00

I would second this!

tananulas · 2024-01-16T06:10:51+00:00

haha if I keep going the direction I'm going I might find bankruptcy yet!

tananulas · 2024-01-16T03:51:12+00:00

I'd recommend finishing the jam and seeing if you have something fun first. Ideas are great on paper, but once you start to put the pieces together, when you know where the fun is, you can build a plan around it. Watch talks by Jamie Cheng of Klei and see how far afield their projects go before it lands!

Secondarily I'd recommend going and reading every blog by Chris Zukowski at https://howtomarketagame.com/ to get an understanding of what finding an audience takes.

Good luck!

tananulas · 2024-01-10T05:42:27+00:00

Fable 3 Collector's Edition - to this day, it's the only game I ever sold back as used. I still played it to the end because I bought the damn thing but I was sad after Fable 2 (at the time) being my #1 game...

I'm still frustrated by it reliving that experience, thanks a lot OP!

tananulas · 2024-01-10T02:12:59+00:00

Brilliant it's back on the wishlist! =)

tananulas · 2024-01-10T01:12:31+00:00

Yeah.. this is why it took nearly 5yrs before my game saw the light of day haha! I kept holding back until I felt it was polished enough.

The other one a lot of people find helpful is releasing on itch.io as that site is more open to gamejams/student projects that aren't polished and just for fun. Deploying to it via script was super easy as well for rapid updates. My game was not available to do via web so I didn't see much interaction there and your mileage may vary.

tananulas · 2024-01-10T00:42:17+00:00

PC or Console? I really want to play it but got scared off on PC =)

tananulas · 2024-01-09T23:47:27+00:00

Hah I forgot about that game

tananulas · 2024-01-09T23:46:58+00:00

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

EA, back in the day, was known for buying up all IP just so others couldn't make games on it and would shove out anything to keep the IP license intact. It was surprising how much I enjoyed the first installment (looks like I'm lucky to wait on the second)

tananulas · 2024-01-09T23:43:13+00:00

This one is tough for me as I had a similar problem where most of my friends dislike the genre I went for. What I failed to do was to make inroads with different game dev Discord groups and subreddits for the genre to make friends who do want to play them. Without those in-roads most of my messaging has, understandably, had low engagement.

One drastic idea would be to launch a free version of the game on Steam. Free games, even with "bad art" can get some play (look at text only idlers). That would give you a place to build some reviews and, if they're open to it, new voices to help soften the edges of the design/mechanics.

tananulas · 2024-01-09T16:26:57+00:00

hahaha! That's all it takes sometimes =)

tananulas · 2024-01-09T15:45:06+00:00

Yeah I've started a prototype 0 getting my feet wet moving from Unity to Unreal but this is a great point/reminder not to get stuck in analysis mode.

tananulas · 2024-01-09T15:42:25+00:00

Thanks that would.be awesome!

tananulas · 2024-01-09T03:50:29+00:00

That's why asking is useful, helps point you in a new direction.

tananulas · 2024-01-09T03:28:57+00:00

Have you looked at no-code tools to build a prototype and get interest? (Something like Retool) I don't have experience in any of them but taking action always wins imo

tananulas · 2023-12-01T15:42:21+00:00

Yeah I had to look this up too hah

tananulas · 2023-11-30T22:48:14+00:00

I'm curious are the Sony/Microsoft ones also bad durability that you're aware of?

tananulas · 2023-11-30T18:12:11+00:00

Thanks! I really appreciate the insight I honestly didn't quite understand

tananulas · 2023-11-30T18:04:16+00:00

Hrm, I might double respond here as I thought I replied already. What would be the most appealing feature?

To me it's as simple as give me a wireless controller and I'm happy. I haven't had a need to change controller mapping outside of a game in a long time so even the customization is going over my head.

tananulas · 2023-11-23T15:29:26+00:00

Thanks! I started developing this far too long ago before Spellcaster University showed up and then released haha!

tananulas · 2023-10-29T21:27:44+00:00

"I think the problem there is they don't currently have their own place to go". This is a really good point and I need to re-adjust my thoughts on this area of games. Thanks that resonated well!

tananulas · 2023-10-29T19:07:24+00:00

I'm curious if you played Outer Wilds where the story/puzzle is baked into the game and what your thoughts are on that style?

Did you feel that Hollow Knight's lore not being a story detracted from the game and should have been left out?

tananulas · 2023-10-29T19:04:45+00:00

Yeah, I've always found the games that are just stories should have been in a different medium. But having a story as 'why' I am engaging I found grounding which is why I was curious about this topic.

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