Deconstructor of Fun

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

This analysis is written by Taras Koshelev (Lead Game Designer at My.Games Venture Capital) who focused on game mechanics and loops and Michail Katkoff (Founder of Savage Game Studios) who covered the market and marketability. Playrix released Puzzle Breakers into soft-launch in late 2019. Puzzle RPGs on Mobile.

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Puzzle Tile Mechanics Build 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 20, 2020

At first glance, it was clear what type of game they were emulating. A bold move for Supercell, going against giants that continue to rule the casual puzzle space. Supercell’s previous entry, Spooky Pop, had a lot of design mistakes that prevented it from competing with the Saga model. The Core Game Loop. Puzzle Pass.

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Puzzle Mechanics Content Data 52

Game Designing

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Lesson 7: Randomness Summary In this lesson, we explore the role of randomness in games, distinguishing between input and output randomness. But from a super-wide, broad view, it’s more like a game is just something that you can do with your time and you can enjoy it.

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Sprite Mechanics Game Design Game Designer 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 13, 2021

Written by Michail Katkoff , games executive and founder of Deconstructor of Fun, and Niek Tuerlings , Senior Game Designer and author of popular game development blog Ludocious.com. Special thanks for the Hybridcasual design insights to Abhimanyu Kumar , founder of Naavik consulting.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Puzzle Advertising Studios 52

Deconstructor of Fun

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

Industry peers asked me: “What games will you make?” “Do Will you make another puzzle game?”. Some of the puzzle games I’ve worked on. Puzzles are one of the biggest market categories and it continues to grow each year. But now I have a team of specialists making puzzles. These are valid questions.

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Studios Build Puzzle Concepts 52

Deconstructor of Fun

DECEMBER 13, 2022

Kevin J Bray (Game Engineer) , another professional with years of entrepreneurship experience (CEO at now defunct Byte Canvas; Executive Director at Tonk Tonk Games), who previously was a developer and lead engineer at League of Legends (about the same time as Maya). And past experience in entrepreneurship.

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Studios Mobile Mobile Console 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 29, 2024

Many game designers will instantly say: "How can we show the player the same thing? Yes, in an ideal world of paid games, this could be true: a unique gaming experience is played only once. So we decided to loop the puzzles at the same time as adding new ones. They're not going to play it again.

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Mechanics Content Puzzle Mobile Gaming 98

Deconstructor of Fun

APRIL 25, 2022

System The system design of the game and the in-game stats balance demonstrate Devsisters’ high standards. The consistency in design logic and gameplay integrating multiple systems show players the wit and excellence in game design choices. The metrics and stats balancing in the game work well!

Baking 52

Baking Simulation Build Animation 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 24, 2023

A cold calculating trader would only care about the outcome, but human beings seem to love watching the outcome unfold - a puzzling topic for economists. Sports betting is probably the best example, where the outcome of a wager is a live sporting competition; the bettor’s stake makes them all the more invested to watch the game.

Games 52

Games Point and Click Asset Balance 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 19, 2021

Small Giant did it with Puzzle and Empires. RPG games on mobile in the West reached new heights during the lockdowns. And the Role-Playing Games (RPGs) kept up with the growth generating $3.3Bn year-to-date with a growth of 29% YoY. Looking at the RPIs (revenue per install) the game is trailing too far from its predecessor.

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Cross platform Mobile Mobile Platformer 52

Designer Notes

MARCH 31, 2023

Welcome to My Elephant in the Room: An Old World Design Postmortem. Here are the games that I’ve worked on. Spoiler alert: Civilization 3 and 4 are going to come up a lot in the presentation… I also do a podcast where I interview game designers about why they make games, so check it out if you have time for 4-hour interviews.

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Tile Point and Click AI Mechanics 98

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 14, 2023

Running through the market by genre, Kress noted that King has done quite well, but other genres had suffered badly, with strategy, RPG, match puzzle, and casino games all down double digits. He stressed that games should hold true to the brand’s values, citing Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes as a perfect product-market fit.

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Games Cross platform Mobile Mobile 59

Deconstructor of Fun

JUNE 6, 2022

But they’ve long since stopped being exclusive to mid-core, cosmetic-driven games and nowadays are present in a constantly growing amount of genres and games. The fact that Battle Passes have been successful on audiences so alien to each other like MOBAs and Match-3 Puzzle fans shows how versatile its design can be.

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Content Mechanics Balance Mobile 52

The Bottom Feeder

APRIL 27, 2022

I've been trying to get good at game design for almost 30 years. Maybe Every Game Should Have Three "Bad" Design Choices One of my main problems with game design these days (which I too often fall victim to) is a design to shave off the rough edges. I mean, seriously. Then you find a way to win.

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Fighting Writing Software Game Design 52

The Bottom Feeder

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

(Side note: There is a new game called Brotato, one of those single-stick shooters that are hot now. These are perfectly balanced. If you're interested in systems design, it's a very interesting title.) My latest all-new game only had 57 skills, but all of them were useful sometimes. I spent hours there. Which is fine.

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Fighting Games Balance Writing 90

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 21, 2021

This analysis will give you a full overview of the Strategy games genre, which is the second-largest genre in the Western markets after puzzle. This makes the genre second largest on mobile in (outside key Asian markets) after Puzzle games. Strategy games also represent nearly a half of all Mid-Core revenues.

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Mobile Mobile Cross platform Puzzle 52

Radiator Blog

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

This is similar to my tactics games writeup and Enderal (huge Skyrim mod) writeup where I spoil some interesting game designer / systems design things. I don't discuss much of the game narrative. I assume general game design knowledge but minimal Deathloop-specific knowledge. It would feel terrible.

Fighting 52

Fighting NPC Puzzle AI 52

Grid Sage Games

JULY 17, 2022

RIF Installers were already a prefab to begin with, one which (without precedent anywhere else in the game) were actually inserted via a separate hard-coded method, so let’s add it as an encounter instead. I wrote about this factor in my recent article on game design philosophy.

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Beta Content Balance Mechanics 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 17, 2020

On looking deeper, it was found that this was driven by two things - 30-35% of the growth was driven by increased IAP integration in various hypercasual mini-genres, most notably Puzzle. The remaining was driven by two titles - “ Crane Game Toreba ” and “ Clawee ” - which together raked in ~$45M over 2019.

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Mechanics Platformer Studios Data 52

Game Design Advice

JUNE 5, 2016

Deep games require knowledge, explanation, creativity, and cleverness. Such a model could also inform our discussions about game design, suggesting directions for design exploration and expanding our palette of analytical tools and techniques. Modeling depth may help us better understand how to think about these things.

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Feature Terrain Baking Games 40

Deconstructor of Fun

AUGUST 27, 2019

This deconstruct is written by Eva Grillova (Game Designer at Smirk Game Studios) and Abhimanyu Kumar (Mobile Games Consultant). Further, it has been relatively successful in both the East and the West - something that not too many games are easily able to achieve. the second piece of the puzzle.

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Balance Content Mechanics Mobile 52

Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

Addressing the initial learning curve, introducing enticing mid-game offers, and refining unlocking progression are essential for the game’s long-term success. With Blizzard's expertise in creating compelling end-game content, Warcraft Rumble has the potential to become a major success and influence future game design trends. ?

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Mobile Mobile Mobile Gaming Concepts 113

Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

Addressing the initial learning curve, introducing enticing mid-game offers, and refining unlocking progression are essential for the games long-term success. With Blizzard's expertise in creating compelling end-game content, Warcraft Rumble has the potential to become a major success and influence future game design trends.

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Mobile Mobile Mobile Gaming Concepts 52

Brand Game Development

JULY 22, 2019

Perfect board game pacing is one of the most underrated aspects of board game design. Somewhere between overwhelm and ennui, there lies a middle ground where a game is perfectly paced. A great board game feels challenging and interesting throughout. At the beginning of the game, a player’s objective is simple.

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Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 15, 2019

One of the hallmarks of good board game design is being able to create hard choices. Sounds easy enough to do, but it’s actually really tough from the designer’s perspective! Let’s talk about how you can create hard choices in your board game. The design process really started with the puzzle.

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Tile Mechanics Games Puzzle 130

Radiator Blog

JUNE 30, 2022

A broughlike is a variation on a roguelike named after designer Michael Brough , who has spoken before on his design patterns like square tiles, orthogonal movement, turn parity, glitching, limited info, simple maze designs, minimal resources. A dense randomized mini-chess puzzle where everything matters.

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Code Educational Education Prototyping 52