Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 10, 2021

I spend most of my waking hours thinking about game mechanics and how they will make players feel. Fighting Power Creep with Scarcity As the Lead Designer on Legendary: Game of Heroes , I invested a lot of time on our first few hundred heroes. Fighting Purchase Regret with Ownership. In my heart, I am a game designer.

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Deconstructor of Fun

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

This is a balance play to ensure players are completing the pass at a speed necessary to maximize player attention while reducing economic inflation from free pass rewards. That’s because these new tiered purchase options include an old fan favorite, luck mechanics!

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Deconstructor of Fun

APRIL 2, 2022

Mobile gaming megatrends Eric Seufert, Mobile Dev Memo. For example, keep it simple for an older player of a casual puzzle game versus a hardcore gamer who understands managing resources and more complex systems Game economists must be careful to balance monetization techniques without blocking the fun.

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Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Being able to backtrack is generally going to be more realistic in the RPG sense--of course your character should be able to go back and pick up that item they left behind, or fight that enemy that scared you away before. In a game setting, though, this can be quite an annoyance from a design perspective (harder to balance!)

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Deconstructor of Fun

SEPTEMBER 19, 2022

The usage of spells, tactics, and magic items : Mechanics reminiscent of classic puzzle game boosters, but with more limited uses. Puzzle RPGs where the real meat is on the RPG and hero collection mechanics. After a successful Boss fight, the player was shipped off to the next island. The full post can be found here.

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Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

I’m reminded of Beta 11’s spicing up the main complex with Heavies and Cargo Convoys , though in this case it’s not just adding one or two new mechanics but instead about turning Garrisons into proper branch maps in terms of content distribution… Encounter Architecture. …alert level xD.

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Radiator Blog

MAY 5, 2021

WE SHOULD ALL DO THIS / STEAL THIS: Dev-owned wiki. The dev team "SureAI" operates the official Endreal strategy guide and lore wiki. It is much better than the boring shot reverse-shot cutscene stuff going on in AAA RPGs these days, and makes Skyrim's "sit" mechanic more meaningful. Anyway, here's my notes. Money sink.

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Keith Burgun

JANUARY 27, 2023

I mean, you spend a LOT of time fighting in this game. In JRPGs, when the battles are fun, it’s actually usually that the party-building / character configuration mechanics are good. One last thing about the combat: it is very poorly balanced. And the battles kind of suck. Let’s talk about that. 50% fewer minigames.

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Radiator Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2022

A homophobic English farmboy is forced to work with a hunky Romanian farmhand, and so inevitable muddy fight sex and simmering romance ensues. Balancing the weight of each system was difficult. When we idolize crisp clean superflat pixel art today, it's actually a new aesthetic invented by indie game devs from the late 2000s.

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Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

As you and your fellow monsters toss around the village king, you attract a steady buffet of adventurers who try – poorly – to put up a fight! No downtime, renewed fun in each game and perfect balance regardless of the number of players. Meeple Word Cloud of Game Mechanics. Description from publisher’s website.

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