Grid Sage Games

MARCH 10, 2022

Some roguelikes don’t strive for balance, but maintaining balance has always been important to me for Cogmind, since it fits better with my vision for this type of game, heavy on tough, complex, and consequential decision-making at multiple strategic and tactical levels. Alien Artifacts. Exiles Prototypes.

Balance 52

Balance Mechanics Beta Prototyping 52

Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

The amount of content variety offered by the original Garrison design was more suited to a lower visitation rate, not the “I’m going to play almost my entire run inside these things” which it had become for some people. Sample Garrison content list from Beta 11. It’d sure be nice to resolve that!

Beta 52

Beta Content Balance Mechanics 52

Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

In a game setting, though, this can be quite an annoyance from a design perspective (harder to balance!) and is likely to either become a player crutch or lead to tedious optimal play (a topic I covered in my game design philosophy article ). Meta Complexity.

Point and Click 52

Point and Click Mechanics Open World Feature 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 15, 2022

Lost Ark outshines other MMO games because each element mentioned above is polished to the next level. Balancing relies heavily on gear, maps are crowded with question marks, Boss fights feature repetitive mechanisms. Though, all of these foibles could be found in other games as well. Let’s use the Witch class as an example.

Cutscenes 52

Cutscenes Art Content Mechanics 52

Radiator Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2022

SPOILER WARNING: This post spoils what happens in my new game That Lonesome Valley. CONTENT WARNING: This post contains discussion of gay sex acts and some screenshots with obscured pixel art nudity. It's mostly "safe for work" even if the actual game is not. Balancing the weight of each system was difficult.

Pixel 52

Pixel Film Art NPC 52