#gamedesign | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pixeldanc3r · 7 months

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DAY 3: OCEAN 🌊🐋

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neorice · 9 months

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Working on a monster catching game with a friend.

We've been making good progress designing various biomes for the game. Each monster is strongest when fighting in its own natural environment.

#pixel art #game art #retroart #gamedev #gamedesign #screenshot #monster game #monster catcher

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thematteblackstudio · 7 months

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The LUCID KICKSTARTER is now LIVE!!

www.lucidkickstarter.com

Back LUCID today! Lets make this dream a reality together! It is my birthday after all INSERT HAPPY FACE HERE!!! See you there.

Don't forget to share this post! Spread the word. Tell your Friends. Tell your Family. Tell your Frenemies! Share this message with everyone you know.

#pixel art #pixelart #indie game #gamedev #aseprite #gamedesign #indiedev #indiegame #metroidvania #lucid #kickstarter #super metroid #legend of zelda #megaman x #celeste

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kokowolo · 4 months

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so i have this new idea 🤡

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iamtherlan · 5 months

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I think I'm going to start posting about my upcoming game on here, currently in soft launch! It's version 1.3 of Ready Set Golf! A thread!

Before we start - a little back story. Back in 2020 my small team at PikPok made Ready Set Golf for Snapchat. Made in PlayCanvas, it was our first true online multiplayer title, so there was a lot of learning to do!

But it was pretty basic. It was "Golf Forever", no real meta-game to keep you playing, or things to earn. Still, very fun! The game is no longer available on that platform, so we've been porting it over to truly try our a real online multiplayer game!

Over the last year we've ported it to a new codebase and redone the multiplayer. We changed the game's "unlimited" play to instead be best over 5 rounds, which has made the game way more engaging. We've also added a Level Up system.

So what's in this 1.3 update? Customization! Finally! When we made the original version of this game for Snapchat, we weren't able to get this in. Now, we can!

In the last update we added a simple level up system, which would give you power ups after playing through games. Now it'll also give you a full customizable item!

Players can earn 4 kinds of customization - Balls, Trails, Flags and Hole Effects. Fun fact - the original game's balls, being a single color, didn't actually roll! So it was surprisingly complicated to get this working here.

One of the neatest additions we've done compared to other games is the Flag. When you win a hole, the flag switches over to yours! A new way to show off to others.

We've got a whole bunch of stuff in here for this update. The artists had a real fun time making awesome particles for the trails and effects, and the balls are so cool!

The game is currently in soft launch in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and now Canada! If you're in those spots, check it out!

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/th/app/ready-set-golf/id1669577248?platform=iphone

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pikpok.golf.play&gl=TH

My brother and Dad are big fans of real golf, and I like olf games, so I'm happy we're able to bring this back and do some new, cool stuff with it.

Now we're working hard on 1.4! Here's a sneak peek 👀

#gamedesign #game dev #ready set golf #mobile games #mobile app developers #golf

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sodaraptor · 1 year

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Interior Worlds is out - and it's 10% off on Steam and itchio until the 15th.

Take up to 1,000 unique photos.

Explore 10 liminal worlds.

Soak in an ambient soundscape.

Find lots of secrets.

In my haste during the launch I forgot to make a post about this on Tumblr, but right now you should grab Interior Worlds on Steam or itch before 10% discount runs out!

My partner normalhumansixx and I worked so incredibly hard on it and would love for you to give it a shot- or maybe even leave a little review if you like it!

❯ Interior Worlds on Steam ❮

❯ Interior Worlds on Itch.io ❮

#liminal #liminalspace #photography #indiedev #gamedev #indiegame #backrooms #unsettling #gamedesign #lowpoly #retro #psx #wishlistwednesday #camera #horror #atmospheric #psychological

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landofcrystalsgame · 8 months

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New overworld map for Land of Crystals! Coming soon!

#gamedesign #gamedevelopment #pixelart #indiegamedev #leveldesign #gamedev #indiedev #rpgmaker #indiegamedeveloper

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unlimitedtrees · 4 months

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the level design of the Sonic Overture '95 demo

been wantin 2 show da level design idid 4 sonic overture .. startin with granite act 2. altho some tiny tiny bits were referenced from sly's level design concepts , and lake did his own edits and added decorations , idid everything else

this level is oneof the largest levels ive ever made , andit was really fun makin it and playtesting it .. i like making HugeAss levels , but with this one i tried 2 make sure to make it have both engaging ,difficult platforming and high speed sections. i wanted 2 make it Feel like marble zone without bein as tedious , and i like how it came out (even if i didnt intend on makin it as huge as it was ... in fact it was actually goin to be Even Larger ,but cus of clickteam limitations and also the level being nearly 5 minutes long , it had 2 be cut down , LOL ! its probably 4 the best tho , cus the level already has tons of very intricate stuff goin on (especialy with the stuff it does with the marble and the pillars)

next is granite act 1 , which is mostly based off sly's level design concepts , but is heavily changed and expanded both to flow more how iwanted it to and to make it more complex .. i had a lot of fun with da later half of da level , makin all sorts of silly challengez...

something i did for fun was hide a bunch of hidden Silly Areas.. these are at the Very , Very top of the level , and require you to be very precise to even Access them , so they dont get in the way of the rest of the level ... but i did it cus i Love making silly dumb kaizo stuff

lake added decorations to granite act 1 as well ,but he also added his own silly secret areas at the very very top of the level that are difficult to get to , which i really like LOL !!! i think more video games need silly parts of the level skilled players can discover

last thing 2 talk about is sunrise gate zone , which is just based off the original demo. act 1 combines the 2014 demo's act 1 and act 2 , only addin a few tiny extra routes and little changes to make it flow a little more

act 2 has a bit more done to it , with it being based off act 3 from the original demo , but has a few new routes at the very top of the level , including ones that make heavy use of the totem pole mechanic. somethin we decided to do is to make the blocks on the walls into top-solid platforms , so i specifcally designed the level so that , if youre clever , you can use the blocks on the walls to get upto places or find secrets...

anywayz thats all 4 this post. i like sonic cd and i hope thats apparent in my level design , LOL !! sonic overture is a game that inspired myart forYearz and its been rlly fun workin on this so far .. this game is pretty and pixys art is gorgeous ohmy lord

#TreesThinks #sonic #sonic the hedgehog #sonic fangame #sonic overture #game design #gamedesign #gamedev #game dev #indiedev #indie dev

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raul-volp2 · 9 months

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Familiriaty, Novelty and Game Design.

Hi, welcome to another random talk by me, Raul, the game designer that never released a game... but I worked as a artist on a fair ammount of them. =) I made a poll on Twitter (never going to call it X) about what the people want if they are going to play on a new setting, some familiar, that uses tropes estabilished by other settings and ip or an attempt of novelty, subverting ideas and trying to estabilish new ones. I made a mistake using a example of familiriaty with Elves doing Elvish thing and some people end up being hyperfixating on the Elves like if they were the main part of the poll, but they were just a example to illustrate what I meant for something Familiar.

But going back to the poll my question was to know the preference of the people related to games in general, but I always interesting in the designer take since they are the ones generating the setting, and by designers I mean the creative force working on the game. And unsurprising a staggering 81,8% said that they want something new when playing a new setting, what was surprising was that 88 people answer the poll and seeing how bad I am at social media and reaching other people this was a massive success, but a expected result, I knew that the majority would answer they want something new, but I also know that this answer is not the truth, at least not the whole truth.

But why make a poll when I know the result and say that it's not truth? THose people are lying? No, of course they are not, but if you are a designer that had to work with research you know that this kind of poll, or in some cases focus group, generally don't work, first because you boil down a complex subject into 2 distinct answer that simplify what is actually not a easy answer, which was more evident when some people answered like it was only a correct way to do it set in stone. But to point how and why the answer might not be the correct one we need to talk about social desirability bias, a idea that people have to answer not the answer they feel honest about, but the one they feel it's correct to do in public, like James Stephanie Sterling pointed in her video 'Damn Fine Coffee", people when asked what coffee they like would generally answer black coffee, but when looking at the sales, the attention generated through kickstarter and even the language used for marketing, they all go for familiriaty, be it using a pop culture reference as the forefront of what the setting is, using srds that convey how the game plays despite if the setting is radically different from what the original game is, and even by looking the biggest Kickstarter success, like Avatar, One Ring and so on, we can see it clear the familiarity is what the designers most do and what the players most put their money into it. So why choose the New as the answer? FIrst I dont believe all the 81,8% choose new but prefers Familiar and I don't believe any of those who wants familiar makes that choice consciously, because our landscape of enterntainment is having a fatigue of familiriaty and we are all feeling it, Marvel, Star Wars, Classic fantasy, all of them are saturating our entertainment with the different shades of the same approach of everything, and there is a genuine desire for something new,might not be the majority but it's there, and inside the indie scene this is more prevalent since we suffer from the sheer power of the big industry and all their familiar products and games, so the indie is poised to be the place for new things, and people might internalize that thought even tho they just want to work on their take of a familiar genre and setting that they love.

So here is the take of it, the answer is something new but analizyng the scene we see that most designers and players goes for familiarity. And at least at first there is nothing wrong with that... well, homogenity of settings aside, but both approachs have pros and cons. Starting with something New, the difficult of them all, you already start with the challenge of have to explain your setting to players, and more aliens ideas, characters, cultures, mechanics will require a good writting by the designer side, and having no pre estabilished setting for the players to set their mind and understand your ideas, this can create some issues, but this shouldn't be discouraging, since the designer job is already to presente their ideas and mechanics is a easy to understand, fun to read and immersive way, you only add the challenge of not having some familiar terms for players to instantly recognize. This drives another criticism I have about the idea that some desigenrs have that players don't understand, or are incapable of enjoy if they can't the reference or know the setting through the lens of familiarity, first I think this is a very pedantic way to see your players, like their mind only works through easy estabilished names and pop cultures references, they are intelligent people from all around the world, treat them with respect, second if you don't believe your writting will make players understand the novelty of your setting and/or rules without any pre estabilished concepts, you should work on your designers and writting skills, because it's your job to make a book people can read and understand, not relying of them to have watched some american tv show to know what you mean on your setting.

For familiar setting/rules, I believe the challenging is even bigger, because if you do something that can compared to another pre estabilished game that's already there, the first question is, why players should play your game instead of the other that's already there if they have similar worldbuilding and/or mechanic? And for ttrpg this is a big valid question since it's a big undertake be able to gather friends and play through even a small campaign. Familiarity can carry a lot of concepts and legacy that you the designer might not want in your game but can have the players to think it's already there, making a reverse challenge of the Novelty designer writting, while with a new idea you need to write in a good way for players to understand the new concept, in the familiarity you need to write in a way for players to see that some pre defined ideas they had for the setting in mind is not there. One case I saw about this was with Fabula Ultima, where I saw one player expecting a combat system that was more in line with the Jrpgs that Fabula Ultima draw inspiration, it wasn't their fault, as far as I know Fabula Ultima is a great game, but it's the risk of working with pre estabilished concepts can create that the designer might take in consideration.

Another point to talk about is the Designer work on all this, on the act of making games itself, and how it at least in small ways, should push for something new on everything it do, don't need to be big new strange and aliens settings or trying to change the entire rules of play, but to drive even if it's a detail of their game, to something different, something that they feel it's better. Because the job of the designer is not to make something that players want, players have a limited idea of how a game could operate and how new games should be because game designer is not their job, so the designer need not to make what players want, but definitely works on something that the players like. To show this I want to add a story about Shinji Mikami, the director and producer of Resident Evil 1,2,3 and 4. During the development of Resident Evil 4 the team stucked with a lof of different directions for the game, with the series gaining fatigue and selling less and less, and having to deal with a lot of survival horror competition releasing due to the immense success of RE series, Shinji and it's teams knew that the next RE need to be different, to be something new. BUt marketing research always ended with players saying that for the next RE they want it to be just a natural evolution of the same game, fixed cameras, few dangerous enemies, resource management, but what they got was a very different experience that not only was a big succes for Residente Evil, delivering a fresh take on the game but also end up changing the game industry as a whole with it's third person over the shoulder camera and control scheme for movement and shooting. All this not because they listened to the surface fans ideas of what they want, because they couldn't imagine this new approach for RE, they didn't have any reference or familiar concept for it, but the new idea worked. And this is how I feel a designer should think, might not be in such a radical way, but as another example, if you ask any player, and even designers, about core elements that make a ttrpg rules and I believe almost all of them would say that dice is a core part of the ttrpg rules, but we have people like Spencer Campbell from Gilarpgs moving away from dices and making a very clever system of it. This is a designer approach, to strive to something new, even if it's little, to always make the scene moving forward.

One point that I also needs to add is how the familiar most time is tied to elements created by white, catholic, american/european man and that holding your ideas close to those you can risk to have some of their problematic ideologies tied to your game. I love Dune, I love Lord of the Rings, I like Dungeons and Dragons, I like Lovecraftion Mythos, but you need to understand that they carry a very problematic concept beneath them, and those are the main examples I have in my mind, and since ttrpg is more and more global, using our own interpretations of concepts estabilished by people from another country can be a good way to add another lens of it, to get rid of it's problematic views and add more value to it.

And for people that might be afraid of trying something new, don't be, Gubat Banwa was awarded best setting yesterday during Indie Game Developer Network, with its Southeast Asian fantasy setting, and that's great, the fact that the scene is dominated by familiar themes also means that there is a ton of space for novelty ideas, be it by analysing already estabilished settings and break it into something new, or by make something you feel it's truly unique, we always need something new, as the familiar setting will never fade and will always be popular, the New ideas is the drive for innovation, so don't be afriad, be bold!

This thoughts and ideas are not pre-written, and I don't think they will ever be, so that's why they might feel crazy and don't make sense to you, im not here to tell what other designers should and shouldn't do, even tho sometimes it seems that I am, but in the end you're the one that should know best how to proceed.

Thank you.

Raul.

#rpg #ttrpg #roleplaying game #roleplayingame #tabletop rpg #tabletoprpg #gamedesign #game design #ttrpg design

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devsgames · 3 months

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Hey, do you have any resources on game design you can recommend? It's easy to find stuff on art, programming, writing, etc., but when it comes to game design it's all a bit blurry. Maybe I'm not looking where I should though.

I'm not 100% sure which type of resource you're referring to so I'm operating under the assumption that you mean more sort of learning resources for game design (as opposed to like, references or whatnot).

Firstly, one of the major problems with game design as 'discipline' is that "Game Design" is a very big and intensely vague blanket term. It's not truly a concrete discipline itself, so it's difficult to teach about the basics of all of game design. Game Designers rarely do one specific thing every time, and a lot of what is done skill-wise is often very abstract ideas like 'problem solving' and 'logical thinking'.

It's why there's studio roles like "combat designer", "AI designer", "systems designer", "level designer" and more all under the "game design" umbrella, and even then these roles might not even be doing the same thing depending on what project they're involved with. A "combat designer" at a studio working on a FPS might be specifically designing player movement while a "combat designer" at a studio working on an RPG might be focusing on something like character skill trees or condition damage types. With so much variation it becomes hard to single out specific resources as universally applicable while still being relevant for learning.

If you're looking to learn something specific about designing games, I find it's usually more effective to seek out first-hand resources based around these specializations that exist within game design and learn how the designers approached their designs, as opposed to learning about 'game design' as an all-encompassing blanket. Seeking out "combat design" or "systems design" to start edging in the right direction - this is an excellent post with an overview of key design roles.

Some of my first places I usually turn to for design stuff are those more tailored towards a wider range of specializations; the GDC vault has free archives with design talks on various Game Design subjects which can help learn more on the process of various game designers operating in their disciplines, and GameDeveloper.com has a Design section for user-submitted blogs and deep dives where you can find similar. If books are your thing, Boss Fight Books often publishes deep dives into specific games, their cultural impacts and design choices around them (the Splunky one was pretty good from my memory). Mileage may vary however as I've heard some are more 'fan appreciation' styled than actual analysis.

I'm sure smarter people than me might have textbook recommendations - unfortunately I have a tiny brain and don't like reading books much. 😔 I also find Game Design a hard subject to read about due to its abstract nature, but that's just me!

Honestly though, I think one of the best ways to learn game design is training your brain by playing lots of games and learn to think critically about the design in them - it helps stretch the design part of your brain and teach you to more actively 'think in design', which will naturally help you learn. This was pretty crucial for my understanding of design when I was struggling to learn how game design worked.

Try this: Sit down and play a game incredibly slowly and just think about everything, especially things you often look past or take for granted (after all, good design is often design you barely notice).

In the game you're playing: How does a player move? Like really how? How far do you push the stick to move? How do objects affect their movement? What alternative movement can they perform? Why? When would they use it? How does it affect them/the world? Why do you think the designer made the movement this way?

In the game you're playing: How does the player's ability work? How long does it last? Why does it work that way/last that long? How do they equip it? What feedback is there for its use? How does it affect the world? Why do you think the designer made that ability this way?

Basically try to reverse engineer the experience and repeat it over and over as you play the game - don't play it for fun, play it for research and you'll likely find a lot of subtlety you never noticed before. Virtually every choice in every game was informed by a conscious design decision (or a conscious production one). You might start to notice patterns and be able to put yourself in the shoes of the designer and understand the decision making process better.

I'd also say - if you make a game, you'll be practising game design, and that's huge. Most designers often learn what they do through doing it on the job or by practising the craft, and it's the easiest way to turn theory and abstract thinking into concrete work. You need to break a few eggs to make an omelette! I think there's a lot of fans who posture as 'critics' because they play games and pick up on some design things, but ultimately have never made a game and don't understand how choices are informed by each other or how these pieces all fall together. There's a huge difference in experience and understanding between critique/theory and practical application, and I think breaking past that barrier always provides a huge wealth of knowledge as a baseline.

Sorry I got rambley, I hope this sorta helps 😆

#sorry if this is borderline incoherent I had a long day lol #thoughts #asks #ask #advice #game design #gamedesign #game dev #gamedev #game development #gamedevelopment

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pixeldanc3r · 7 months

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DAY 2: CLOUD ☁

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roxieroadarts · 20 days

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Hey rhythm game enthusiasts and modders! I'm excited to share that I'm working on an awesome Friday Night Funkin' mod featuring my killer clown OC, Elowen. Elowen is not your typical clown-she's got killer dance moves and a style that's out of this world!

I'm on the lookout for talented collaborators to help bring Elowen to life. We need artists to create her vibrant and unique look, coders to make sure her dance moves are smooth and seamless, and musicians to compose some killer tracks for her levels.

If you're interested in being part of this project, head over to

[Casting Call Club) (https://www.castingcall.club/projects/f-n-f-v-s-elowen-a-friday-night-of-funkin-mod)

for all the details and to audition.