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

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Despite its relatively small item pool and low emphasis on random variants, Brogue has an even greater emphasis on terrain factors that really help support the dynamic gameplay in a way that keeps repeated runs interesting. Brogue’s trippy colors come from impactful terrain features like water, lava, and gases.

Data 52

Data Terrain Balance Mechanics 52

Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

The tool would load up the game, visit a Garrison at every depth, and tally its contents, adding the results to a file, doing this for however many seeds are specified. I could save the data to revisit it later, after adjustments are made. Rampant terrain destruction is awesome, by the way ;).

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 ). Architecture. But we can sorta do something about that if we want to!

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

Game Design Advice

JUNE 5, 2016

If we can describe what makes certain problems interesting in this particular way then we may learn something about “interestingness” in general, about the difference between data and meaning. Deep games require knowledge, explanation, creativity, and cleverness. What depth isn’t.

Feature 40

Feature Terrain Baking Games 40