#game design

[prokopetz]

I think a lot of folks in indie RPG spaces misunderstand what's going on when people who've only ever played Dungeons & Dragons claim that indie RPGs are categorically "too complicated". Yes, it's sometimes the case that they're making the unjustified assumption that all games are as complicated as Dungeons & Dragons and shying away from the possibility of having to brave a steep learning cure a second time, but that's not the whole picture.

A big part of it is that there's a substantial chunk of the D&D fandom – not a majority by any means, but certainly a very significant minority – who are into D&D because they like its vibes or they enjoy its default setting or whatever, but they have no interest in actually playing the kind of game that D&D is... so they don't.

Oh, they'll show up at your table, and if you're very lucky they might even provide their own character sheet (though whether it adheres to the character creation guidelines is anyone's guess!), but their actual engagement with the process of play consists of dicking around until the GM tells them to roll some dice, then reporting what number they rolled and letting the GM figure out what that means.

Basically, they're putting the GM in the position of acting as their personal assistant, onto whom they can offload any parts of the process of play that they're not interested in – and for some players, that's essentially everything except the physical act of rolling the dice, made possible by the fact most of D&D's mechanics are either GM-facing or amenable to being treated as such.*

Now, let's take this player and present them with a game whose design is informed by a culture of play where mechanics are strongly player facing, often to the extent that the GM doesn't need to familiarise themselves with the players' character sheets and never rolls any dice, and... well, you can see where the wires get crossed, right?

And the worst part is that it's not these players' fault – not really. Heck, it's not even a problem with D&D as a system. The problem is D&D's marketing-decreed position as a universal entry-level game means that neither the text nor the culture of play are ever allowed to admit that it might be a bad fit for any player, so total disengagement from the processes of play has to be framed as a personal preference and not a sign of basic incompatibility between the kind of game a player wants to be playing and the kind of game they're actually playing.

(Of course, from the GM's perspective, having even one player who expects you to do all the work represents a huge increase to the GM's workload, let alone a whole group full of them – but we can't admit that, either, so we're left with a culture of play whose received wisdom holds that it's just normal for GMs to be constantly riding the ragged edge of creative burnout. Fun!)

* Which, to be clear, is not a flaw in itself; a rules-heavy game ideally needs a mechanism for introducing its processes of play gradually.

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #game design

[sahonithereadwolf]

"Protect the Sacred's first complete playtest is here! Protect the Sacred is a anticolonial pulp adventure game that looks to emulate the mood and tone of the pulp movement beyond just as the globe-trekking adventure of stories like Indiana Jones, Johnny Quest, and Tomb Raider, but also pulp as horror, mystery, sci-fi, drama, and even romance.

In Protect The Sacred you work as a member of The Memento Group, an organization that, nominally, is an international nonprofit who is mostly interested in historical preservation, cultural outreach, and the building and support of museums and landmarks. As well as deconstructing and interrogating the colonial legacies of various academias and how they continue into today.

In truth, while they do that work and more, they are also a community-facing resource of specialists who look to protect, preserve, and reclaim a world of magic, monsters, and mystical artifacts on behalf of who they belong to and on that community's terms. Because for the Players of Protect The Sacred, all the intangibles of culture are all so very tangible.

Play as adventurers armed with folkloric magic power, deeply rooted in their connections to the culture around them. From wielding a legendary magical item, to practicing a cultrual magic, to taking the form of the fiercest monsters from your people's stories.

Explore the mythic realms talked about in the legends of heroes and gods as part of the Grand Outside, a magical otherworld in a mutually affecting relationship with the material. Explore a secret wizards nightmarket for clues and rumors on a trail for a stolen remains. Brave impossible and strange dungeons formed by stories that need to be told and stare truth straight in the eyes. Plan a heist to steal back the pilfered and stolen.

In this game I look to ask people to consider themselves, their relationship to culture, and what it looks like. I want you to consider and think on the meaning and value of the stories, lessons, and skills we pass on to others. I want to ask how we could challenge the ways we build and engage with history and these stories. This is a game where you fist fight fascism in many forms. It's a game about telling stories and building heroes. Are you ready to Protect the Sacred?" --- Information about joining the playtest can be found in the link! I'm excited to show y'all what I've been working on for about 2 and a half years.

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #game design #protect the sacred rpg #playtesting

[nicolekart]

Little WIP of game design for my graduation project. I wasn't sure, but it turns out I can show a little...

So I'm working on the concept and animated intro of a mobile game based on "Journey to the West" by Wu Cheng. There's still a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm optimistic because I'm doing something I really enjoy!

Would you be interested in seeing more concepts and animated pieces?

#my art #my art style #digital art #digital illustration #concept art #game design #game art #sun wukong #monkey king #journey to the west #jttw #original art #art student

[ratwavegamehouse]

So I'm gonna try and do a bunch of TikToks just talking over PSYCHODUNGEON (and I'll probably cross post all of them, but also will write actual posts with words on most of the same stuff).

The first one is about the Wizard playbook which my editor has referred to as Degree Regret: The Class.

#indie ttrpg #game design #ttrpg #psychodungeon

[greenflamethegf]

TBH that might even thiner they avrage

#transfem #lesbian #game dev #game design #t4t lesbian #196 #video games #wlw #trans #r/196 #rule #twitter #twitter screenshot #beautiful body #body positivity #that's my girl #Out there on twitter #having fun #I hope

[amberautumnfaebrooke]

i think i could design a better death arena for children than those hunger games amateurs.

the whole premise of the games is all pageantry. every year you get a crop of 24 candidates around whom the entire state media apparatus dedicates an entire year to building celebrity narratives. this candidate is the younger sibling of last year's winner - these candidates are young lovers forced to compete - he's smart - she's fast - root for them, care about them, watch them, form opinions on them, bet on them. and then they stick them all in an arena to kill each other, which is a great entertainment premise, except that they make the arenas themselves really boring and generic. ooo, they're in...a forest.

it's not even an interestingly designed forest. imagine if the game designers treated their arena like an actual video game designer treats level design. discrete zones with multiple paths between each room, creative use of lighting to guide players to points of interest, points of interest scattered across the map, discoverable resources hidden to encourage exploration. instead they just have a generic outdoors location and if you get too close to the edge they throw a random fireball at you.

the 75th games are especially bad about this. the arena is laid out radially into 12 wedges, and each hour one wedge becomes especially dangerous in a 12-hour loop. as a mechanic, this is genius. it forces everyone to keep moving, making "survival by hiding" an engaging and tense viewing experience instead of someone sitting in a tree for three days. plus, it encourages players to return to the center of the arena, where travel time between wedges is short, which creates a high-value zone for players to regularly return to and conflict over. in other words, it's a mechanic which incentives players to adopt dramatic, dynamic, exciting behaviors which are entertaining to watch (not to mention it communicates geography to the audience well). but it only incentives those behaviors if the players understand what's happening, and they go out of their way not to tell the players anything! when they figure out what's going on, the showrunners spin the arena to disorient the players, like they're intentionally trying to get them to just. randomly wander the jungle instead.

this isn't even to mention how often they create undramatic, boring deaths. they plant poison berries around the arena. they supply no fresh water and no way to get it. they roll poison clouds over sleeping victims. these happen to work out in the books themselves but you have to imagine that extremely often these just result in players dying unexciting deaths.

the cardinal sin though, of course, is that nothing is done to personalize the arena for the crop of contestants that year. if i'm designing the 75th hunger games and two of my most beloved contestants famously had to cancel their wedding because of a return to the games, i would OBVIOUSLY give them a trail of, i don't know, wild game which conveniently leads directly past a well defended wedding chapel. will they hole up there for a while? hold a mock ceremony for themselves? do or receive ironic violence here? stare wistfully and move on? any of it is better television than getting attacked by generic attack monkeys. you should have a dozen of these things on the map for every single candidate. but the game makers are more interested in doing the same thing every other game has done than in telling a compelling story.

it makes me second guess enjoying the children's murder arenas at all.

#the hunger games #game design

[insertdisc5]

📚 A List Of Useful Websites When Making An RPG 📚

My timeloop RPG In Stars and Time is done! Which means I can clear all my ISAT gamedev related bookmarks. But I figured I would show them here, in case they can be useful to someone. These range from "useful to write a story/characters/world" to "these are SUPER rpgmaker focused and will help with the terrible math that comes with making a game".

This is what I used to make my RPG game, but it could be useful for writers, game devs of all genres, DMs, artists, what have you. YIPPEE

Writing (Names)

Behind The Name - Why don't you have this bookmarked already. Search for names and their meanings from all over the world!

Medieval Names Archive - Medieval names. Useful. For ME

City and Town Name Generator - Create "fake" names for cities, generated from datasets from any country you desire! I used those for the couple city names in ISAT. I say "fake" in quotes because some of them do end up being actual city names, especially for french generated ones. Don't forget to double check you're not 1. just taking a real city name or 2. using a word that's like, Very Bad, especially if you don't know the country you're taking inspiration from! Don't want to end up with Poopaville, USA

Writing (Words)

Onym - A website full of websites that are full of words. And by that I mean dictionaries, thesauruses, translators, glossaries, ways to mix up words, and way more. HIGHLY recommend checking this website out!!!

Moby Thesaurus - My thesaurus of choice!

Rhyme Zone - Find words that rhyme with others. Perfect for poets, lyricists, punmasters.

In Different Languages - Search for a word, have it translated in MANY different languages in one page.

ASSETS

In general, I will say: just look up what you want on itch.io. There are SO MANY assets for you to buy on itch.io. You want a font? You want a background? You want a sound effect? You want a plugin? A pixel base? An attack animation? A cool UI?!?!?! JUST GO ON ITCH.IO!!!!!!

Visual Assets (General)

Creative Market - Shop for all kinds of assets, from fonts to mockups to templates to brushes to WHATEVER YOU WANT

Velvetyne - Cool and weird fonts

Chevy Ray's Pixel Fonts - They're good fonts.

Contrast Checker - Stop making your text white when your background is lime green no one can read that shit babe!!!!!!

Visual Assets (Game Focused)

Interface In Game - Screenshots of UI (User Interfaces) from SO MANY GAMES. Shows you everything and you can just look at what every single menu in a game looks like. You can also sort them by game genre! GREAT reference!

Game UI Database - Same as above!

Sound Assets

Zapsplat, Freesound - There are many sound effect websites out there but those are the ones I saved. Royalty free!

Shapeforms - Paid packs for music and sounds and stuff.

Other

CloudConvert - Convert files into other files. MAKE THAT .AVI A .MOV

EZGifs - Make those gifs bigger. Smaller. Optimize them. Take a video and make it a gif. The Sky Is The Limit

Marketing

Press Kitty - Did not end up needing this- this will help with creating a press kit! Useful for ANY indie dev. Yes, even if you're making a tiny game, you should have a press kit. You never know!!!

presskit() - Same as above, but a different one.

Itch.io Page Image Guide and Templates - Make your project pages on itch.io look nice.

MOOMANiBE's IGF post - If you're making indie games, you might wanna try and submit your game to the Independent Game Festival at some point. Here are some tips on how, and why you should.

Game Design (General)

An insightful thread where game developers discuss hidden mechanics designed to make games feel more interesting - Title says it all. Check those comments too.

Game Design (RPGs)

Yanfly "Let's Make a Game" Comics - INCREDIBLY useful tips on how to make RPGs, going from dungeons to towns to enemy stats!!!!

Attack Patterns - A nice post on enemy attack patterns, and what attacks you should give your enemies to make them challenging (but not TOO challenging!) A very good starting point.

How To Balance An RPG - Twitter thread on how to balance player stats VS enemy stats.

Nobody Cares About It But It’s The Only Thing That Matters: Pacing And Level Design In JRPGs - a Good Post.

Game Design (Visual Novels)

Feniks Renpy Tutorials - They're good tutorials.

I played over 100 visual novels in one month and here’s my advice to devs. - General VN advice. Also highly recommend this whole blog for help on marketing your games.

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

#reference #tutorial #writing #rpgmaker #renpy #video games #game design #i had this in my drafts for a while so you get it now. sorry its so long #long post

[boggsart]

I’ve decided to post all of the progress here as well, not just on instagram. Some people have asked to be tagged once I post some progress, but I can’t remember who they were. So if you wanna see future progress, let me know and I’ll tag you!

This one may not look too different from the previous one, but nothing really turned out the way I intended to.

The colors, the textures, the focus, the sounds, the camera, everything just seems so off, and oh boy the animation… this is the result of rushing and not knowing what I’m doing, just inserting keyframes, tweaking the graph editor and hoping for the best. So maybe signing up for this project wasn’t a great idea after all lol. Plus the datapad’s not even fully textured, you can literally see where I started adding details on the front, then for some reason I just left off lol

One thing I’ll definitely work on in the future is the menu itself, because if this project is for a graphic design thesis, then I might as well try to make the only thing that has something to do with it look more presentable. I’ll definitely be changing up the fonts, and I have some other ideas for the background as well.

But for now, I’ll move on to the remaining 5 character menu animations. Originally there were gonna be 5, not 7. At first I was randomly picking out the characters I wanted to make one for, then I realized, it’d probably be best, if each squad got one animation. The 501st gets Rex, the 212th gets Cody, the CG gets Fox, the 104th gets Wolffe, and the 241st gets Tukk. CF99 got Hunter but I really wanted to make one for Tech as well, since modeling and texturing him took the longest 💀

Once all of that’s done, I can finally move on to animating the trailer video. Which I’m terrified of, but oh well lol

#star wars #star wars fanart #clone wars #clone wars fanart #bad batch echo #bad batch tech #bad batch hunter #bad batch #bad batch crosshair #bad batch wrecker #the bad batch fanart #tbb #tbb animation #tbb fanart #3d modeling #game design #game development #game concept

[videogames-i-wish-were-real]

Videogames I wish were real #97

A roguelike game that takes place in the world's biggest library, which has been overrun by monsters, where you play as a librarian determined to save it. You venture inside the library armed with your weapon of choice and two messenger bags you plan to fill with whatever books you can rescue.

After you clear the monsters in a particular section of the library, such as the Poetry section, you'll unlock a permanent buff that will last for the remaining of that run. For example: clearing the Travel section will help you map areas faster, and also unlock the bookworm railway system that will allow you to move more easily between certain parts of the library.

Besides section buffs, you'll also be able to learn all kinds of useful attacks and skills by finding specific books in the shelves, reading them and carrying them in your messenger bags. The more books you carry, the stronger your character will be, and the abilities each book will grant you will be on theme with the book, it's literary genre or one of its tropes: carrying with you a bestiary will allow you to quickly identify the weak points of monsters you've met before, a book with an enemies to lovers trope will allow you to turn a monster into a temporary ally that will fight alongside you, a botany book in your bag will let you gather medicinal herbs growing in the library, and carrying a potions book will allow you to prepare healing potions (more effective than just herbs), etc.

Not everyone believes the library can be saved, which is why during your expeditions your mission is not only to kill monsters, but also to rescue books and bring them to the new library. Since getting books out is one of your main priorities, starting your runs with your satchels nearly full of books that grant you useful abilities won't be very efficient, so you'll need to decide how many books you want to bring back with you to the library during each run.

Fighting monsters is dangerous, and sometimes you get hurt, but also, sometimes books get hurt, which why after some runs you might need to stop by your workshop to repair any damaged books. The hides of certain monsters are very sturdy, so using them to rebind books will make them more durable.

There is no respawning in this game. If your librarian dies inside the library, the next librarian that ventures inside might eventually find their body. If you're close to death and you have a particular book from the Travel section in your bags, you'll be able to use it to summon a bookwork that will take you quickly and safely back to the entrance with whatever books are currently in your bag.

You love your library, and you are determined to save it, armed with the greatest weapon in the world: knowledge (and a sword), even if it's one book at a time.

#viwwr #videogames i wish were real #videogames #video games #writeblr #writers on tumblr #concepts #game design #roguelike games #libraries #books #finished writing and proofreading this 8 minutes before posting time oopsie

[ganondoodle]

rough concept for the unique boss within the deku-tree (required for the quest to repair the mastersword; boss name is a placeholder)

(totk rewritten project)

#ganondoodles #zelda #art #ganondoodles rewrites totk #totk #loz #game design #? #took me longer than i wanted ... as always lmao #perspective is a little fucky so the size of the boss seems way too small bgdkfldjljl #thought about a mushroom bug at first #but cherry trees dont tend to get alot of bugs as pests(?) #so i went for some worm thingy #with miasma hands and eyeball shrooms bc why not #design might not be the best but its the just a concept after all

[magpieandpossum]

I'm already about 110% in love with these rough draft character sprites....

these are all unshaded, and will probably be continued to be edited, but I just wanted to share to get feedback! both garak and quark have alternate outfits as well ^^

#is it obvious that kira and bashir are my favorites... #doing game art makes me so happy #doing game coding makes me 😡 #star trek #ds9 #deep space nine #star trek fanart #deep space 9 #star trek deep space nine #star trek ds9 #game #design #video games #game development #game design #game dev

[prokopetz]

Pseudo-metroidvania where you play as an only-nominally-sapient little slime creature who found the corpse of a badass deep space bounty hunter and stole their power armour. The central gimmick is that you start with what is effectively an endgame loadout, but the upgrade descriptions are all incomprehensible gibberish (because, you know, you can't read), and they're all activated by awkward and counterintuitive input sequences – imagine some of the more baroque fighting game inputs as a point of reference – which the player is unlikely to stumble upon by chance. The "upgrade progression", such as it is, consists simply of gradually revealing to the player the tools they already possess and how to activate them.

#concepts #gaming #video games #metroidvanias #game design #violence mention #death mention #swearing

[devsgames]

Skyrim's late-game power-fantasy-creep is so funny even by fantasy standards. Like, it's hilarious how it feels like it completely steamrolls everything else. By the end of the game you're:

the Chosen One

dragonslayer

Archmage of the only magic college in the kingdom

leader of a group of werewolf paladins (or alternatively a literal Vampire Lord)

vampire slayer

minor nobility of literally every county in the kingdom (and one not in the kingdom)

high ranking soldier of a faction of the civil war

personal conduit and champion for like a dozen various deities and gods

leader of an ancient and forgotten dragon-slaying warband

master of the thieves guild

leader of a group of serial killers

protector of the entire kingdom

member of a bard's college

Like imagine a person existing that had all these titles and also the actual lived experience to back it up.

#thoughts #blog #skyrim #game design #narrative design

[sahonithereadwolf]

I ended up ripping out my entire health system the other day to make a whole new one. This is the most last minute major system change completely on gut instinct but it was absolutely the right move.

So, the system I was using was very much taking it's cues from a lot of games that where descendants of FATE. But the health was still very much split into mental/physical. Take 4 boxes of damage, get an injury tag that gives you negatives until you're ko'ed.

But… Instead I tied them to the playbooks my game function off of. Each character is made tags made from themed open ended questions you pick to answer.

You have minor injuries still as those bars fill up. But when all the bars in a playbook are, you get a major injury that in some way gets in the way of using your playbook. You no longer get access to all your positive tags as long as it's an issue.

Sure you have a magic sword, but it's hard to use if you have a broken arm or lost confidence in your skill to protect others.

If you get three major injuries, meaning you can't use any of your playbooks, you become "in distress". You are no longer a main character who takes initiative, the daring pulp adventurer, but the "damsel in distress". You're a passive supporting character who can't drive things forward, but react

You might still help, but the spotlight and heroics are for others

Anyways, this was a roundabout way of explaining this screenshot from my notes

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg #game design #protect the sacred rpg

[jesawyer]

How do you feel about Fallout: New Vegas's reputation for "cracking eggs"?

I don't think the game itself does it (or at least I haven't seen a compelling argument for why this RPG, specifically, would do it), but there are clearly a lot of trans people within the F:NV community who had pivotal experiences re: their gender identity around the time they played the game or started interacting with the community. I think it's more likely that trans people within the F:NV community created a welcoming space for other people who felt more comfortable being themselves.

I don't think I can take any credit for it, but I'm glad for it.

#game design #fallout new vegas #transgender #trans rights

[noneoutofnone]

Getting whiplash going back to Armored Core VI after playing Starfield

Starfield trips over itself letting you know all of the quests are chill and good actually. The choices in dialogue range from doing a good deed to doing a good deed… for money😈. The only way to join the Space Pirates is to be offered the chance to go undercover first, making sure you see the Pirate but you’re a good guy option. If a persuasion check with someone fails, leaving you only with the prompt [Attack], your companion will say something to the effect of “woof, that was rough. But you did what you had to do.”

The most recent mission I finished in Starfield was for the United Colonies. You stand in front of a council of bureaucrats trying to convince them to hand over banned archival weapon data. This could help stop a small but growing danger to the galaxy. The council argues that it could also lead to that weapon falling into the wrong hands - It was locked away for a reason. It’s a great moment because it was the first time a character in starfield stood up and said to me No, you are in the wrong here, your research could lead to the weapon data leaking, civilians will be put it danger. ALERT. oh no. ALERT. Just as this conversation is happening an entirely contained but also extremely dire attack occurs. ALERT. You rush out and save the day. The threat is proven to be real and the data is necessary. No more questions about is it the right thing to do. Forget about all that other stuff we brought up, you were right. The whole council apologizes to you profusely. Here, take the nuclear launch codes, and here’s a thousand credits as an apology for insinuating that you weren’t the galaxy’s goodest bestest boy.

Mission 1 of Armored Core 6 is called “Illegal Entry”.

In mission 4 “Destroy the transport helicopters” the helicopters are just that. No weapons. Trying to run from you. The rubiconians who stand between you and the helicopters are defending their families. During the fight the enemies bark about you being the bad guy. After the mission your Dad calls you and says “It’s just a Job 621. All of it.” Throughout the entire game you are flooded with voicemails, calls, voices in your head, that all have an opinion on whether what you’re doing is good or bad or just a job.

Starfield is telling you not to think about it too hard. Armored Core is telling you to think about it. A lot. Screaming at you to think about it. What are you doing. It’s not just a job. The game is talking about your actions through all sorts of different lenses.

It’s stepping out of a lazy river and then immediately riding down Niagara Falls in a barrel. Sometimes literally. You see the same safe boring landing cutscene a million times in Starfield. Twice 621 has packed themselves into a barrel and yeeted it into danger.

#gaming #writing on games #armored core vi #starfield #games criticism #game design #fromsoft #Bethesda #621 #writing #ac6 #armored core 6 #videogame essay