How would you describe the game loop of multiplayer pvp games? What drives the player to play these games again and again?

I’m working on a dish generation system for a food-themed card game, and I could use your advice on refining the system to be both functional and fun for players. The goal is to create a database of unique dishes (drinks, snacks, meals, etc.) that are flexible, intuitive, and grounded in real-world food concepts. There are around 1,400 ingredients in the game thus far.

Ingredients are defined with a base ingredient (boiled_meat, seared_vegetable_slices, vinegar, etc.) and a set of attributes. Attributes are flavors (savory, salty, spicy, etc.), food categories (dairy, berry, condiment, etc.), or specific ingredient variants (brown rice, honey, salmon, etc.)

Each dish is defined with 1-8 ingredient requirements.

Each ingredient requirement is defined by a base ingredient (or any) and a set of attributes.

For example, an ingredient requirement for any baked meat would have the base ingredient "baked_meat" and no attributes, a requirement for a baked poultry would have base ingredient "baked_meat" and attribute "poultry", or a requirement for a baked quail would have base ingredient "baked_meat" and attribute "quail".

I have looked into various technologies and AI tools for rapidly generating these dishes, but the complexity of the task has rendered these tool mostly useless. If anyone would be interested in providing some advice for ways to speed this up, or would like to help design some dishes, let me know! Thanks!

In an older thread, I had trouble getting playtesters to recognize that a water elemental enemy was immune to certain attacks. I've applied most of the easier to implement advice and playtesters are finally starting to understand the encounter.

This is the current water elemental fight: https://i.imgur.com/G493nvz.mp4

This was the old version where players struggled: https://i.imgur.com/zsyWD7a.mp4

Many thanks to the kind folk at r/gamedesign! I have a demo of the game out on Newgrounds with these latest changes.

Roguelike mechanics are great because they stretch gameplay mechanics a long ways by letting you repeat the same content over and over again and master it. They also create a pretty well defined game loop.

The issue is that the market currently seems very flooded with indie Roguelikes.

So, what are some alternative design methods to Roguelikes which allow you to stretch gameplay mechanics and get plenty of reuse out of limited assets/mechanics?

Hi everyone,

there's a reference for a game I've been thinking about but I couldn't get my grasp on and it's driving me crazy. I remember a game where if you get killed, you have a few seconds where you could kill your opponent and avoid the game over. I'm pretty sure I've played a game with this mechanic but it seems like it's hiding inside my brain. Please help me, getting old sucks haha

Hello! We've just posted a video how we implemented Diablo 2 Parallax Effect in our tycoon strategy game. I believe it can be useful and helpful to someone else. If so, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQZZOFVSXx8&t

We'll be happy to discuss

I'm currently designing a metroidvania, where you unlock abilities like block or dash by defeating bosses.

Unlocking abilities also unlocks combos, e. g. block+attack = parry. But I would like to avoid having to explicitly teach players about all the combos through tutorials.

So I thought I'd introduce a skill tree where player can unlock the available combos instead, just for the sake of telling them which combos are available through skill tree UI.

This skill tree would not allow for build variety though, as players would be expected to buy all available combos anyway.

Would this system be reasonable? Would people think the game is an RPG when it is not?

I have a system where players may do only one major action per turn, but may optionally take an additional smaller action.

I was trying to compile a list of videogames that have this concept of "Bonus Action" e.g. from DnD. I was surprised to find really only:

1. Baldur's Gate 3
2. A handful of DnD faithful nethack-likes

Are there any other examples of bonus actions implemented in video games you know of?

For my new pen and paper roleplaying game, I want to have each weapon type have 3 damage categories: Minor, Base, Boost. They are used by different abilities, like an "execute" ability would deal Boost damage to a low health target. A quick attack would deal minor damage but not consume a full action etc. I hope this clarifies the concept.

I created Tier-1 Damage values:

A Dagger deals D4 (minor), D6 (base), D8 (boost) damage.

A Longsword deals D4+D6, D6+D8, D8+D10 damage.

My ISSUE now is, that I want various item tiers: You should be able to get a Tier 3, 4, 8, Dagger. To avoid weird behaviour like Dagger being the best choice before tier 4 and longsword takes over from 5 etc, I need to scale the damage scores in a uniform way.

I could of course map out percentages: Dagger deals 2.5*(1+(Tier-1)*0.2) average minor damage. For Tier 3 this would result in dagger minor damage being an average of 2.5*1.4 = 3.5 with equal distribution, which equals a D6 roll. D6 can be rolled on a ttrpg table. Cheers.

What about Tier 10 though. 2.5*2.8 = 7. Which would be a D13. Kinda hard to roll a D13 without rerolling D20s until you land in 1-13. Even worse, for some tiers the damage becomes a floating point number. For damage scores that involve multiple dice, the distribution might vastly change from one tier to the other if you pick just SOME dice with the same average.

I am trying to find a way to make damage scores scale uniformly, that works on a gaming table without too many math-breaks. Is there any process for that?

I've always been an entrepreneur and have launched several startups. On top of that, I've been a lifelong gamer. I'm now 38 years old, and as I'm about to become a parent, I'm seeking a stable job.

Although I studied Business Administration and don't have formal education in game development, I am deeply passionate about gaming and have gained substantial experience through various projects. I would love to work in the gaming industry—even starting with a junior position to grow and contribute over time.

Here's a video of one of my recent side projects, which I built entirely on my own—from ideation to coding and graphics. It's a launcher, lobby, and matchmaking system for a server of the game Ultima Online.

https://youtu.be/aCzZsrNPnzs?si=mbS7IFBbw8DMYyN7

Would it be realistic for me to find a job in this field with my background? I’d appreciate any insights!

Hello all, I recently got the opportunity to have my portfolio and resume critiqued by an industry lead. I got plenty of great feedback, but I still have a question about one of the critiques. At the time my portfolio branded myself as a "Game Designer", which made since to me because I am applying for game design roles. The critique in question was that the title "Game Designer" is not specialized enough to be seriously considered as an applicant. It was recommended to me that I find a subset of game design to specialize in if I'm looking to land a role.

Following this, I'm wondering what subsets are out there. Trying to research online didn't have anything concrete, so I want to hear it from my peers. The only ones I've seen so far are gameplay design, level design, and systems design(this one seems to change definition for every role...). For now I've decided to brand myself as a gameplay designer since I enjoy working with mechanics as well as game feel (specifically characters, cameras, and controls.)

What other standardized subsets are out there?

Hi, I'm designing some Wordle style games and want to make it color blind friendly. I know Wordle's is:

• Incorrect: white on grey

• Correct letter: black on blue

• Correct position: black on orange

I've also seen suggestions for:

• Incorrect: grey on black

• Correct letter: white on amber

• Correct position: black on green

Anyone have input tips or suggestions? Right now our games looks like: https://flyingcometgames.com/wordy-verse

So I'm drafting ideas for a tactical shooter I'll probably never make (this is actually very fun to do) and, while making a list of weapons, I noticed a lot of guns are very similar: 5.56 or 7.62 selective-fire rifles, 9mm pistols and submachine guns, 12 gauge pump-action tube-mag shotguns, etc.. That's by design: it's simply natural that militaries would get the most utilitarian, familiar, easy-to-supply guns from a tried-and-true design (it's why every military nowadays uses either AR or AK pattern guns); all the unique firearms are either prototypes, special-purpose, or civilian-market guns you wouldn't see on the front lines.

Then I began thinking of the tactical shooters I've played. A lot of firearms in games like Insurgency: Sandstorm and Arma have fairly negligible differences to each other, especially the former (where you have the M4A1/QBZ-97, G3A3/FAL, two Galils, etc.), but it works out because they appeal to firearm enthusiasts. Crucially, these tactical shooters are limited by realism: you can't really get away with radically changing how a Remington 870 works, you can't make characters bullet-sponges so damage is a factor, and you can't start throwing in double-barrel lever-action shotguns or muzzle-loading muskets or crank-operated laser guns or swords or you'll alienate (piss off) your playerbase. Then you have stuff like balance to consider so players don't gravitate to the same five meta guns. I know older tactical shooters like Rainbow Six 1998/Rogue Spear and SWAT 3/4 sort of resolved this by massively limiting the loadout to like one burst-fire rifle, one semi-auto shotgun, etc., but that feels like a very outdated approach as players expect more than 10 guns in a game where guns are the star of the show.

So my stupid ass was wondering: if you're trying to have a grounded, realistic tactical shooter using real firearms, how would you actually make each gun feel different? Is the answer really just miniscule stat differences in stuff like recoil and penetration? Would you have to start making sacrifices and cut guns that are too similar? Does reducing customization and weapon variants (e.g. the Ithaca 37 is only available as a sawn-off) help maintain weapon uniqueness? Is making creative liberties (e.g. arbitrarily locking the FAMAS to burst-fire, altering the stats of what would otherwise be the same copy-paste 12-gauge shotguns) inevitable? Does it actually not matter and only come down to feel (e.g. there's little difference between an M4A1 and an AUG, but the latter is a bullpup with a cool integrated scope, so it's different enough)? Or am I wrong in thinking this is some inherent problem with the genre's realism?

I’ve got an idea for a unique RPG, and I’m looking for some talented collaborators to help bring it to life! The concept is a pixel art RPG where you play as Bruno Mars, traveling through a funky, rhythm-infused world, battling enemies with his music. Think Uptown Funk meets a turn-based RPG, where Bruno uses his songs to defeat villains and restore harmony to the city.

The Idea: Title: Bruno Mars: The Uptown Hero Genre: Turn-based RPG with rhythm game elements

The story follows Bruno as he stops the evil DJ D-Bass, who’s stolen the city’s soul and turned everything into a soulless wasteland. Bruno must reclaim the music and bring the funk back!

Gameplay: Turn-based combat where Bruno uses songs like "Uptown Funk" and "Grenade" as moves. Rhythm-based mini-games where you perform in concerts or battles, syncing with the beat for bonuses. Side quests inspired by Bruno’s songs about love and relationships. Boss battles against DJ D-Bass’s musical minions. What I Need Help With: I’m looking for a few passionate collaborators:

Pixel Artists: Help design Bruno, enemies, and the world in a retro, neon-lit style. Game Developers: Help with RPG mechanics and rhythm-based gameplay. Writers/Story Designers: Write quirky characters, side stories, and narrative-driven quests. Bonus: There are plenty of 8-bit remixes of Bruno Mars songs already on YouTube, so no need to create original music! You can check them out to get a sense of the vibe we want for the game.

Why Collaborate? Fun concept: Perfect for fans of music, retro RPGs, and Bruno Mars. Creative freedom: Pitch your ideas for gameplay, story, and design. Teamwork: Let’s make something unique and fun! Sharing the love: If we make it happen, let’s get it out there and see some success. TL;DR: I have an idea for an RPG where you play as Bruno Mars, using his music to save the city. Looking for artists, developers, and writers to help create this funky, rhythm-infused game. There are 8-bit Bruno Mars remixes on YouTube, so we can use those for music!

Add me if you’re interested and send me some of your past work if you have any!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

The mechanic they use is one I've often thought should be in TCGs, as it is very simple to explain to people and allows for a lot of interactivity without any 'interrupt' abilities. it's almost like Chess in some ways, or like the old Valve 'Artifact' game (which I loved even if no one else did!)

My question is really about how this sub feels it works in practise. Do people find it fun? Has their experience been positive? Do people talk highly of the game?

One of the issues with 'I go you go' systems is that if one side has more 'activations' they can delay some of their better ones till later, or alternatively fewer bigger creatures can be better than hordes as you have less to activate. Does this occur in Star Wars Unlimited at all?

Ty for any thoughts.

I’ve a nice idea for a game with a theme I think would be perfect for this mechanic idea. IE it’s fully pvp but also the game could end if you’re not pulling together at times (or every turn, not got that far yet) - so imagine Scythe but with disasters, invaders, crisis that need resources etc)

Are there any examples of this working well, or maybe there’s reasons it wouldn’t?

I'm not sure what the name for this is so I'm just calling them diegetic cahracter controllers. Some examples of DCCs: GTA, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, your favorite AAA 3rd person gaming "experience." Basically, character controllers that prioritize animations and visuals over player control. Think of moving around in GTA and how your character will turn in tight circles and stop moving a couple steps after you've stopped giving "move" commands. This is opposed to a character controller that stops, starts, and turns instantly with character input.

Now obviously character controllers can exist on a spectrum between two extremes. For example, transitioning from walking to driving in GTA feels pretty instant. It's not like you have to sit and watch your character buckle their seat belt and turn the ignition. So here we see a DCC having non-diegetic components.

Now this is where I turn into a hater: Does anyone like this stuff? I pointed out Ghost Recon Breakpoint because my friend asked me to play it with him, and I feel like instead of controlling a character, I am describing to another person how they should control a character. It feels so off. I can press the "go prone" button like 4 times and nothing will happen, with no visual feedback.

Contrast this with Rainbow Six Siege (or any popular FPS really) and you have almost instant feedback on your input. You can prone anywhere and your legs will just clip through the wall if there's no room.

I find DCCs frustrating and that they add little to my experience. I would rather be a camera riding a roombo traversing a perfectly smooth surface over this unresponsive meat suit that I find myself piloting in GR:BP, but I'm sure this is not a universal opinion so what am I missing?

I've recently added a water elemental enemy to my game who has the gimmick of taking no damage from physical attacks https://i.imgur.com/zsyWD7a.mp4

This is an early-game enemy that I'm using to introduce the idea of True Damage and enemy resistances, but I'm seeing playtesters struggle a great deal with this encounter. The winning strategy should be a simple Use true damage attacks to hurt the enemy while using the other runes available as support.

Most playtesters generally ignore any text that appears on screen. One playtester has commented that the game must be bugged since he wasn't doing the damage he was expecting. The wheel combat system is designed so that the player MUST use True Damage at some point, but in practice about half of the playtesters don't really pay attention to whether what they're doing is effective.

What are ways that other games handle cases where an enemy is immune to certain types of damage?

I wasn't going to post this because I felt like I was just bragging but c'mon... that's pretty f!@#ing impressive! Step aside chess, step aside go, there's a new kid in town! I don't really want to get into my math but basically it's like 80 different talents which all can have a level of 1-12 so as you can see it indeed is a very large number if you calculate what that adds up to. And what I find impressive is this is just the starting state this is before even getting into any game play. So yeah, thanks for listening I just had to share that with someone.

As a solo indie I recently started working on my second game and turning the concept I have in my head into a decently designed game feels like the biggest challenge in this project.

I'm wondering if there are some best practices, principles and validation techniques that could help me get this right.

The game would be a story driven racing game with some metroidvania-ish elements.

At the beginning the player's goal is to beat a series of challenges while competing with NPC opponents on side scrolling levels. E.g. be the first to cross the finish line on a level; avoid obstacles without taking too much damage on another level; etc. From gameplay POV relatively simple mechanics.

However, it turns out, that these challenges are impossible to beat because that's how they were designed on purpose. The races take place in a simulated environment and the player's character is actually used by the (in-game) designers of the challenges to train the NPC opponents.

So, the player's real goal becomes uncovering the secrets around the simulation and its designers, finding hidden parts of the levels and new abilities there that can helps them 'cheat' some of the impossible challenges later. This latter would be the metroidvania-ish aspect of the game, e.g. a teleport ability that can help the player passing through walls to find shortcuts.

At first I imagined a more interactive story, but I settled on simply discovering more and more details about the 1984-esque world of the game. (Mainly because I have to accept that I'm not an experienced designer and/or writer.)

From gameplay POV the player would discover and learn multiple new abilities, probably only with limited number of uses. E.g. they can only find two teleport 'charges' throughout the whole game and they need to figure out when is the best to use these.

The player would lose the series of challenges repeatedly, but eventually they would need to figure out how to combine all their newly learned abilities (4-5 abilities and 1-2 charges per ability) to finally beat all the impossible challenges in one go and break out of the simulation at the end (+ probably followed by some short endgame).

Some of the above probably sounds vague, because some of it is actually still only a vague idea. But here are the risks and challenges I already see in this:

1. Communicate and make the player understand very early that it's OK if they can't beat the challenges and they find them impossible. This could hopefully encourage players to discover more by continuing the game (and prevent "the game cheats" type negative reviews).

E.g. I have an idea that on an early (the first?) level the stars could suddenly disappear from the night sky in the background and then reappear but form a "you are being lied to" message.

I also liked in Void Bastards that after the first - of many - deaths you get a "we expected you to die" message.

2. Encourage the player to think outside-the-box when they use their new abilities, but also give them small (then more direct?) hints when they struggle.

E.g. A hidden part of a level could be behind a sewer gate. Seemingly it's just a normal sewer gate. But the player could think, "hm, what if I try to teleport into the darkness behind this gate?" If they don't discover this secret for a while, a pair of blinky eyes could give them a hint that's something's in there.

3. I can hopefully design an interesting solution that leads to beating all the challenges. And then reverse engineer from that the starting, impossible-to-beat state of the challenges plus the small puzzle pieces that provide the solution. But how do I help the player to figure this out? How much can I thrust the player? Should I give them very direct feedback when they try something that is (or isn't) part of the solution? I guess direct and immediate feedback could avoid the player getting stuck. But it could also potentially lead to the player just bruteforcing their way through the game trying out loads of things mindlessly instead of thinking creatively. So, something in between?

I'm not looking for concrete solutions, more like techniques that can help me answer these questions. Am I even asking the right questions? Are these too broad questions?

I'm working on a game where the player uses a device to travel to various locations, sort of Doctor Who style. Each location the device can bring the player has a keyword that must be entered into the device for it to transport the player to that location.

The goal is for the player to learn about the world they find themselves in by discovering new keywords, which lead to new locations, which lead to more keywords. But I'm having an awfully dreadful time trying to design puzzles for the keywords.

I don't want to just have the keywords be on pieces of paper, or out in the open. But at the same time, I don't know how to introduce the mechanic without flat out explaining it!

I have a bunch of ideas for locations and how they connect, but I don't know how to structure it at all. I want it to be non-linear, but I also don't want the player to get frustrated with it.

I can't really apply conventional puzzle design to this since that usually requires a mechanic that has strict rules to it, like in The Witness, and I feel so overwhelmed by it all. Do I have a character just say a keyword in conversation? What if the player doesn't pick up on it? I can't have another character say "Oh, could that be a keyword??" since that would be insulting to the player.

Hi! I wanted to talk to someone that works in game design as I’m thinking of going to get a certificate through my college for it, and I wanted to know what it’s truly like, if a certificate would help me get hired, if I should pursue it professionally etc. thank you :)

Hey so I have this problem where I have four modules which have 3, 8, 4, and 5 elements (or squares on a board) respectively. Now as if this wasn't a complex enough challenge to tackle if we were using 6 side dice is that I'm using 12 sided dice and am refusing to use anything less because I'm using 12 sided dice for every other part of the game. So that's my issue, and I'm looking for solutions.

One of the only real solutions I've found is just to go around the "board" back to the beginning, and each time you make a revolution you tap the die on the square and say the number of additional revolutions you've made. How this would normally look is say if you rolled an 8 and then started on the "board" with 3 squares you'd go to the first one, count "one" then the second one, "two" then the third one, "three" then back to the first one, "four" and so on. Instead what I've been doing as I'm testing these elements out is starting by moving to the first square normally and calling it out, "one." But then instead of counting two forward and looping I just pick up the die, tap it back down on the same square and call out the number that would have been added on if you had just looped around, so that would be four. So using this method you move to the first square and count "one", then you tap the die on the square again and count "four," then you tap the die again and count "7", and then at that point you can move normally and count forward to 8.

That's not really a bad work around honestly, it's just weird. Like, I don't find it a hassle to use this work around and especially now that I've gotten used to it it's actually very intuitive. It's just... WEIRD! Like this is so different than anything anyone would be used to and I'm just wondering if I should roll with it and pretend like it's no big deal or find a better work around. What do you guys think?

If you haven't seen Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary, definitely check it out. It's interviews with the core team of Half-life 2 and I thought it was really well don. As the title states, I was wondering if there were any other documentaries or dare I dream, doc-series of game developers talking about their processes and choices during the development of their games?

I think this is one of the best videos on Tim's channel and I just wanted to share it with you guys.

He basically explains that there is no one game or mechanic to "rule them all" and no matter what you put or NOT put into your game, or even provide or NOT provide the player with a choice, some people will not like what you did no matter what.. and that it's okay because you are not making a game for everybody anyway.

https://youtu.be/VWvSaAGt9N8

Let’s say you have a weapon with a special ability. Wich is the better way to limit the usage of the special ability; a timed cooldown like in minecraft dungeons or a progress bar like the supercharge button in Brawl stars?

i found one of my old scratch games and i want to make it into an actual game, i found that it was kinda addicting but some parts felt kinda stale so i need help making it more fun https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/992328557/

Hi, everyone. I am a fourth year CS student and currently aspiring to be a Game Designer, but I'm primarily a Software Engineer so I don't actually have that much experience. I'm very familiar with Unity, programming and general Game Development, but I'm stumped when it comes to Game Design.

What good book about Game Design is there to walk me through?

Primarily I'm wondering if the popularity of a game would influence people's perceptions. Would a game be more susceptible to critique or poor reviews if it wasn't popular even if it was the exact same game? Would the devs have started worrying about the slow sales and perhaps published a less optimistic post-mortem somewhere? (I looked around for this but couldn't find anything from before the game took off in popularity)

Source of slow initial sales.

v

I'm building out a card based mystery room. I've got the puzzles and the narrative and the flow ironed out. However, I'm running it as a game master.

Other games in the genre use card numbering and lookup tables to point players to new cards.

When I was discussing this with a more experienced designer, they said that this was in bad taste and that I should invent something else.

This is my first game so I am inclined to give weightage to what the more experienced designer said. However, logic (and my multiple trips around the sun) indicate that mechanics are often common across games in a genre.

Do you have an opinion or advice you'd like to share?

Edit: Thanks to everyone who commented. Your inputs have helped me decide: I will remix that mechanic and make it my own. Grazie!