Designer Notes
SEPTEMBER 6, 2023
I argued then that we need to stop assuming that a game’s theme or SETTING determines its meaning and, instead, that meaning comes from the mechanics themselves. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about games which do a good job of constructing meaning from their mechanics and also about ones which do it poorly.
Radiator Blog
OCTOBER 13, 2022
The high visual polish and stellar production values adorn a solid but predictable gameplay loop: you fight through dungeons with random rooms / enemies, collect resources, and bring them back to your hub to build up your village and its inhabitants. And yet it doesn't get more mechanically complicated.
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Radiator Blog
MAY 5, 2021
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. Destroy the player's expectation that relationship mechanic = main cast member. It's not uncommon to walk between towns and fight like 6 different packs of wolves. Money sink.
The Bottom Feeder
OCTOBER 18, 2023
The trick is making sure the fighting part is engaging. Restrictive terrain. Unless actually fighting a boss fight. A thousand hours of looter shooter game can't rely on story, so the player must be made to feel good with the game mechanics. That's the loop. Which means it has to have variety. No suspense.
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Mechanics that are never quite worth taking advantage of, items that haven’t lived up to their potential, or were later superseded by other options but remained unchanged, or even long-term experiments that were included at some point but never updated/expanded/removed.
Radiator Blog
AUGUST 12, 2022
So I divided the bumpy terrain into quadrants, with big tree roots gating each section. To unlock each root gate to the next section, the player must fight their way into a little fort and press a big obvious flashing red button. It helps supplement the stealth fantasy in a game with basically no stealth mechanics.
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. Not universally so, to be sure, but grind tends to be more of a roguelite thing.
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