Designer Notes

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

Hi everyone, I’m Soren Johnson, and welcome to You Have No Idea How Hard It Is To Run A Sweatshop Here are the published games that I’ve worked on over my career, some of which I will touch on over the next hour. I’d like to talk about some of these examples today and examine how best to build meaning in our games.

Mechanics 75

Mechanics Game Design Game Designer Build 75

Mnenad

JULY 8, 2018

The Mechanic I. I was looking for suitable solutions for having both views in the mechanic of the game. But before I explain the narration, I want to jump back in time when I started building the endless terrain generator. But on the other hand, this fact made me aware of my competence as a game designer. 

Prototyping 52

Prototyping Terrain Open World Rigging 52

Mnenad

APRIL 9, 2018

Designing the game world's creatures. As I promised in this chapter I will dig deeper into the designing process around the creatures that will be walking on the procedural terrain. I can imagine this as a great tool for artists of all kinds, even when it focuses on digital painting and concept art.

Terrain 52

Terrain Concepts Art Mesh 52

The Bottom Feeder

OCTOBER 18, 2023

At some point in the last several decades of video games, everything became a role-playing game. Turns out, if your game design is a little lacking, all you need to do is spackle on a bit of "Make bars fill up to make numbers get bigger to make bars fill up." Designers think making an RPG is easier than it is.

Games 75

Games Fantasy Fighting Art 75

Grid Sage Games

MARCH 10, 2022

Mechanics that are never quite worth taking advantage of, items that haven’t lived up to their potential, or were later superseded by other options but remained unchanged, or even long-term experiments that were included at some point but never updated/expanded/removed. ASCII art for Exiles prototypes.

Balance 52

Balance Mechanics Beta Prototyping 52

Designer Notes

AUGUST 31, 2021

The following is an excerpt from the Designer Notes for Old World. The game, a historical 4X set in classical antiquity, released on July 1, 2021, and is available for purchase here. The first Civilization game was like a game design thunderbolt, sent from the heavens and marking everything it touched.

Tile 40

Tile Terrain Game Design Game Designer 40

Grid Sage Games

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Overall Rogue doesn’t really have many different item characteristics to modify or games systems to interact with, which is a primary limiting factor in the extent of randomization a game can support. Brogue’s trippy colors come from impactful terrain features like water, lava, and gases. Low on treads or armor?

Data 52

Data Terrain Balance Mechanics 52