Remove AAA Remove AI Remove Cutscenes Remove Indy
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Open world RPG design notes from Enderal, a big long Skyrim mod

Radiator Blog

It's probably not worth the hassle for a solo indie. This is a convenient diegetic way of locking the player in-place for a cutscene, while also priming the player for an extended cutscene. Skyrim was already notorious for this "break the AI pathing and snipe at them" exploit metagame, but Enderal sort of just gives up here.

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Design review of Redfall by Arkane Studios Austin

Radiator Blog

Instead there's cutscenes without animation, scripted conversations without choreography, and readables you rarely read because the game never pauses. There's no Destiny-like seamless matchmaking and no Left 4 Dead style good-enough bot AI. that a bigger US AAA or a non-US indie would've failed to capture. But not really.

Studios 98
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Deathloop deconstruction / design thoughts

Radiator Blog

unlike Outer Wilds, golden loop here is heavily hard-gated by quest progression, not a "true" information game, compromise with AAA market? sorry if your game happens to crash, or you get a dreaded UI freeze. sorry fix: let players soft-bank / soft-checkpoint some of their progress? Bot invaders often don't interrupt a boss fight.