Designer Notes

MARCH 31, 2023

So, why should I go back to make a historical, tile-based 4X game? 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. New borders would come from tile specialists and urban improvement.

Tile 98

Tile Point and Click AI Mechanics 98

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. Generally speaking, opinions were divided over (although largely in favor of) the success of one-unit-per-tile.

Tile 40

Tile Point and Click AI Mechanics 40

Keith Burgun

JANUARY 4, 2023

At different parts of the bridge there were investment tiles, so on a basic level the premise was kind of, “do I move to a relatively unsafe investment tile, or do I BUMP?” You win by bumping the opponent into damage areas, dealing damage to them until their health reached zero, before they could do it to you.

Mechanics 52

Mechanics Game Design Game Designer Playtesting 52

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Tasty Humans is a 30-60 minute, tile-laying, pattern-building game for 1-4 players. Carcassonne is a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. But every tile that you claim affects what your rivals can take next. Are you excited? Hobby Board Games.

Tile 130

Tile Point and Click Games Art 130

Deconstructor of Fun

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Together with Mishka, they discuss the highs and lows of Spyke Games, shining a spotlight on their latest sensation, Tile Busters. Rina attributes the success of Tile Busters, their second and most successful game to date, to an experiment gone right. Even if it is not your preferred genre choice. I couldn’t agree more.

Tile 65

Tile Co-op Games Puzzle 65

Designer Notes

AUGUST 31, 2021

With that preamble done and due praise given, it is all the more remarkable that one bad game mechanic has been preserved from version to version, tweaked perhaps, adjusted at times, but still as clumsy, fiddly, and unnecessary in 2021 as it was in 1991 – the system of placing citizens on tiles.

Tile 40

Tile Terrain Game Design Game Designer 40

PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

RimWorld is balanced around sitting on a single map, with everything easily accessible. Without it, rendering the 800.000 tiles that compromise the game map became problematic, so the team had to spend a week on optimizing that. Interacting with the wider world is entirely optional. Being a new engine, Godot is still rough in places.

Dev 117

Dev Development Prototyping Feature 117

Deconstructor of Fun

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

One could even make an argument that the less puzzling cores such as bubble shooter or tile blasting are not as good of a fit for an audience like this. After carefully composing a balanced team of fighters, the player takes their party of stalwart heroes into battle. This speaks of the importance of the core gameplay. Core Gameplay.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Tile Mechanics Build 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 8, 2024

In my opinion, classes are a fantastic feature : They add a layer of gameplay depth in deck building and usage that was much needed in Mini , while simultaneously providing a great balancing tool to give relevance to specific sets of units and discourage unbalanced combinations, and a great incentive to acquire all units belonging to a Class.

Tile 69

Tile Mechanics Balance Content 69

Grid Sage Games

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

open for full size) Okay so each tile actually occupies four times the usual amount of space, but what we mean here is that the cell dimensions are doubled. Something in between 1.0x

Render 52

Render Engine Engineering FPS 52

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 20, 2017

In a game I co-designed with Matt Greenleaf, which is currently unpublished, I had come up with a mechanic that was whenever a player made a move, the game state would either go to imbalance or balance. As monks we can only win once we are in perfect harmony, which requires strategic placement of garden tiles to balance our own inner state.

Mechanics 130

Mechanics Games Game Design Game Designer 130

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 10, 2021

This increase, sliced by subgenre, was driven mostly by Tile Blast and Puzzle & Decorate. There is no need for a seemingly endless chain of hyper-optimized puzzle levels but instead features a carefully balanced ecosystem of interwoven merge chains. A big advantage of this strategy is its scalability.

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Advertising 52

Tom Francis

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

The pawn is a shitshow of clumsy balance changes. Unlike every other piece, it can move to some tiles only if they’re empty, and to others only if they’re occupied, and only if by an enemy. OK, so as far as I can tell, the pawn has always been fiddly all the way back to chaturanga, the game chess comes from.

Concepts 100

Concepts Game Design Game Designer Tile 100

Deconstructor of Fun

OCTOBER 27, 2020

Order rewards are balanced between the time it takes to manufacture them and the XP and the Coins. These tools are: Pickaxes: Destroys 1 tile and makes adjacent tiles visible. Dynamites: Destroys a row of tiles and makes bottom and top rows visible. TNTs: Destroys 8 tiles around it (3x3).

Co-op 52

Co-op Puzzle Games Mechanics 52

Keith Burgun

JUNE 20, 2022

I mean, part of why I can’t believe that is that for almost a full year after the launch, I was furiously updating the game: two new factions, a new game mode (arguably two), a map editor, tons and tons of balance changes, polishing, bugfixes, you name it. Not to mention porting the game to iOS, Android, Switch, and XBox.

Indy 52

Indy Point and Click Game Design Game Designer 52

Mircosoft Game Dev

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

Volumetric fog is making its first appearance in Godot 4, balancing a realistic look and fast performance, thanks to the use of temporal reprojection. Probably the biggest improvement relying on that is the new Tiles editor, which has been reimagined based on your requests and reports.

Beta 52

Beta Engine Engineering Animation 52

Deconstructor of Fun

JANUARY 17, 2022

On top of a smaller board, Clash Mini features no equipment system, no stat-based synergy system, no shared pool of units and a simplified balance logic of unit selection rolls and resources. New game boards with Tiles that heal Minis or charge their Super abilities are some of the Tile modifiers unlocked through League progression.

Content 52

Content Mechanics Point and Click Mobile 52

Designer Notes

OCTOBER 14, 2021

There’s just no way to balance a game with that much variability, and I was afraid to put my thumb on the scale and start covertly killing off rulers who had overstayed their time on the throne. I kept it a secret because I wasn’t sure playing ten rulers would actually work, and it turned out I was right.

AI 40

AI Simulation Mechanics Mobile Gaming 40

Deconstructor of Fun

MAY 4, 2020

This game packs some of the best balanced, nerve- wracking, strategic gameplay on a mobile device. Even better, the team has showcased a holistic focus on the game: Masterfully balanced the gameplay with regular nerfs/buffs, refreshing the meta Designed for both elder and new players, often forgotten by mature games Took risks (e.g.,

Puzzle 52

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Mobile Gaming 52

Deconstructor of Fun

MARCH 22, 2021

The majority of growth in 2020 in Match-3 games came from Tile Blast, Puzzle & Decorate, and classic match-3 games. Similar to Today’s: Current level setup (clear objectives in X moves or less) Mode: Balance Description: Collect 2 colors of gems roughly at the same pace. With $3.7B A small price to pay.

Puzzle 69

Puzzle Mobile Mobile Mechanics 69

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. There is also an escalation in strategy as the players fill up their boards by acquiring more and more Leader tiles. They have just a single Leader tile and their monster’s unique “personal craving.”

Tile 130

Tile Games Playtesting Balance 130

Brand Game Development

JULY 15, 2019

Players weren’t just drafting which tile they wanted most; they were also picking their turn order for the next round. Is it worth taking that better tile at the expense of picking last next round? It is much more interesting than if it was simply “which tile do you want most?” That is an interesting decision.

Tile 130

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.

Code 52

Code Educational Education Prototyping 52