Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 23, 2017

You help balance out each others’ weaknesses. Sarah: I’m the one who makes the early prototypes and I’m in charge of the playtesting. When designing the game itself, it’s more important to marry yourself to the experience than it is the mechanics of the game. An early stage game needs to look the way it plays – unpolished.

Prototyping 130

Prototyping Playtesting Games Game Design 130

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 20, 2017

The core engine is what’s left when you strip a game of mechanics and obstacles. The core engine is the bare minimum set of mechanics and concepts you need to have a functioning (but not necessarily fun) game. Game mechanics are how we bring the core engine of a game to life. What are game mechanics?

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Games Game Design Game Designer 130

Keith Burgun

JANUARY 4, 2023

For month after month, I tried fixing them with different supporting mechanisms, different ways that cards were obtained, different ways damage was dealt, and a lot more, but nothing really fixed the fundamental problem. Once I realized that we were going to have to ditch the core mechanism, that kind of meant something like starting over.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Game Design Game Designer Playtesting 52

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 8, 2017

With enough games, outliers tend to balance each other out. This is a checklist I like to check off before I start final testing: Get the physical prototype ready. The drafting mechanic allows for players to plan their road trips to a limited degree. I’ve ordered an updated version of the prototype.

Point and Click 130

Point and Click Dev Games Prototyping 130

Designer Notes

AUGUST 2, 2021

None of these systems were any fun and weren’t intended to be so; they were mechanics put in place to keep the players from ruining the game for themselves by founding too many cities just because it was simply the most effective strategy.

Tile 52

Tile Build Mechanics Prototyping 52

Radiator Blog

MARCH 16, 2023

It shows the everyday work of medium-scale commercial game dev in unprecedented detail: the creative high of successful collaboration as well as the ugly prototypes, grueling bug fixes, and painful miscommunication. Each level also had unique mechanics and art styles that all tied into a cohesive whole. What's the balance?

Art 59

Art Concepts Dev Studios 59

PreMortem.Games

MARCH 1, 2024

As we were prototyping there was still a feeling the game needed more action. Thus I make an effort to use purchased art assets only as a starting point to then be modified into something more unique and fitting of the aesthetic.” “We built a prototype in our spare time and saw the potential. But that’s not all.

Studios 104

Studios Prototyping Visual Scripting Art 104

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.

Balance 52

Balance Mechanics Beta Prototyping 52

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

We’re picking up where we left off last week with How to Design the Mechanics of Your Board Game , so read that if you haven’t had the chance yet. Today, we’ll be focusing on testing game mechanics after you design them. A quick recap: game mechanics are how we bring the core engine of a game to life.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Games Balance Development 130

Mnenad

JANUARY 14, 2020

  So I remember exactly how my first prototype looked like. I don’t remember anymore how it came to the decision to make it Countryball themed, but I guess the sheer number of possibilities, both in game mechanics and design choices, have led to that decision.   I’m happy that the app does well!

Bug 52

Bug Communications Mobile Mobile 52

PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

RimWorld is balanced around sitting on a single map, with everything easily accessible. Identify key features you need your engine to support, make some prototypes and see if Godot suits you and your game. Disappointed by the lack of integration of the overworld feature into RimWorld, he further developed his idea.

Dev 115

Dev Development Prototyping Feature 115

Brand Game Development

DECEMBER 11, 2017

Game rules are how we regulate the mechanics of our games so that they are consistent with the messages we want to send to players. Short-term mechanic testing. Brandon: At the short-term mechanic testing stages, you’re really just using rules to help underlying mechanics manifest themselves! Private testing.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Concepts Writing Games 130

Radiator Blog

AUGUST 12, 2022

I liked the idea of climbing / descending a big weird tree, and building it in Quake would be a big challenge, so that's what I prototyped first. This early prototype felt weird to play, because the player could just run around the big open landscape and lead monsters on a big chase.

Prototyping 52

Prototyping Fantasy Fighting Terrain 52

Designer Notes

MARCH 31, 2023

Here are some screen’s from the game’s prototyping phase. Civ inherited this mechanic directly from Empire, a game from the 80s which had much of the same tile-based, turn-based combat as Civ but without the scope of all human history. A good example is what I’ll call “Every Unit Moves” which is how Civ has always worked.

Tile 98

Tile Point and Click AI Mechanics 98

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 14, 2023

Diversify revenue model Cilingir urged game-makers with games skewed heavily toward either ad or IAP-based monetisation to balance their revenue mix. He stressed that games should hold true to the brand’s values, citing Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes as a perfect product-market fit.

Games 59

Games Cross platform Mobile Mobile 59

Designer Notes

AUGUST 10, 2021

The big change that always gets mentioned when going from Civ 4 to Civ 5 is one-unit-per-tile (1UPT), which is interesting as 1UPT is purely a mechanical – as opposed to thematic – change. 1UPT, on the other hand, helps balance some of the extremities of the Orders system by making it more difficult to kill a unit via stacking.

Tile 40

Tile Point and Click AI Mechanics 40

Designer Notes

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Simulations can be great games, but they tend not to be a good format for turn-based games with transparent game mechanics. Hence, themed victory conditions were out for Old World , but we needed something in place, especially since we were playing MP within a few months of early prototyping.

AI 40

AI Simulation Mechanics Mobile Gaming 40

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 21, 2021

By all accounts this genre is matured to a point where it could use a massive innovation to both the progression mechanics and social gameplay. The only true bright spot was Art of War , which despite prototype level production quality has scaled up to over 5M in net revenue a month with no stop in sight! Then Yu-Gi-Oh came along.

Mobile 52

Mobile Mobile Cross platform Puzzle 52

Radiator Blog

JULY 6, 2021

My first prototype were sim-heavy, based on basic cellular automata , a technique popularized by Conway's Game of Life (1970) where cells (or anything, really) live or die based on crowding, However this felt too fiddly, with small shapes that changed too quickly. There's something interesting between these two notions of simulation.

Simulation 52

Simulation Art AI Internet 52

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 17, 2022

The only examples of F2P shooters at scale were Korean (Crossfire) and Chinese (Assault Fire/Ni-Zhan), both focused on pay-to-win mechanics. It was not uncommon to assume that a better designed map or finely balanced mode that took three times as long as competition would eventually win the day.

Content 52

Content FPS Mobile Mobile 52

Deconstructor of Fun

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

So this is this tough balance between being really super fast and building something really small and iterative and getting data soon and deciding what to do. They get to a prototype level. Just a total creative genius of taking a Japanese game show mechanic and putting players into Battle Royale through it like that in itself.

Games 52

Games Point and Click Engine Engineering 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 22, 2021

Royal Match Royal Match is a perfect example of finding success through improvements - not step-change innovation - cherry-picking the strongest mechanics from the best games to create a new top game. Even though Candy Crush Saga had roaring success with the match-3 switcher, King was not the first company to create the mechanic.

Puzzle 69

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Mechanics 69

Radiator Blog

DECEMBER 12, 2022

Back in 2019 I made an unfinished prototype for a Gay Western game jam to contemplate the anniversary of influential gay cowboy film Brokeback Mountain (2005). Balancing the weight of each system was difficult. Like many game prototypes, my initial sheepherding test began as something much grander and more complicated.

Pixel 52

Pixel Film Art NPC 52

Brand Game Development

JULY 22, 2019

So often, when we’re balancing our designs , it’s because we’re trying to nail down board game pacing. In each of the design diaries that I have written so far, I have focused on a specific game mechanic or isolated portion of the game. Acquiring more Leader tiles gives the player more to try to balance.

Tile 130

Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130

Radiator Blog

JUNE 30, 2022

I first prototyped it back in 2019, but I didn't really know how to finish it. Originally this was prototyped as "Saugzwang" and I made it for the 7 Day Broughlike Jam back in 2019. For balance purposes, I limit the number of voyeurs in the maze, otherwise it can enter a deadlock where there's only voyeurs but no one for them to watch.

Code 52

Code Educational Education Prototyping 52