Sat.Nov 12, 2022

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Rage Against The State Machine: the bashable FSM antipattern

GameDev Blog

There’s a pattern I’ve seen over and over again in game development. I’ve seen it in networking (currently wrestling with it now, in fact), UI, AI, and more. A pattern I used to frequently use myself. A pattern I’ve also.

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Why are game designers wrong 80% of the time?

Lost Garden

The joke goes: An expert game designer is 20x more effective than a newbie. They are correct 20% of the time instead of 1%. Why are game designers wrong 80% of the time? Sometimes they are wrong by a little. Sometimes by a lot. Is it poor planning? Are they morons? An expert painter does […].

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Don’t Solve the Hard Problem

Lost Garden

I have a design tool I call “Don’t Solve the Hard Problem” It consists of three steps Example 1: Meaningful NPC interactions Now, people working on the hard problem of NPC AI may be upset right now. The example I just gave is SO trivial. And isn’t the problem they are pouring their lives into […].

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The trap of adding combat to your game

Lost Garden

A thing I’ve realized making non-combat focused games is how expensive combat mechanics often end up being in the end. If you add combat… “The basics” to get you in the door take immense effort. Enemy design, encounter design, player design, attack/defense systems, game feel, all the art and fx. Then once you’ve got your […].

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The Workshopping Skill

Lost Garden

How do you cultivate a wildly productive generative engine of design creativity. Especially one detached from your ego? Design in this case means coming up with plans and specs for the thing you are making that fits the resource constraints. And the process of workshopping designs is where a designer coming up with multiple design […].

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Kindness

Lost Garden

So much mentoring I do is asking folks to treat themselves with kindness. Overwork, anxiety, external and internal pressure can put us into a dark hole. We find ourselves lacking mental resources to be playful. – Danc (This was originally a Tweet: [link].

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