Let’s talk about the biggest incentive-alignment problem in Pinball: The ๐๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ญ๐ข๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐จ๐๐. Pinball builds escalation into its game design through the use of upgrades and special modes unlocked during play. Players accomplish objectives by making specific shots, often somewhat risky, building up to a game state change that massively increases scoring potential – and often […]
Airline Pilots follow safety checklists to reduce crashes. Even for decade-long veterans can forget to do the obvious. Same thing for F2P game studios. This is my F2P Checklist I bring to every game studio when I’m analyzing their projects. It’s surprising how few studios have strong answers for each of these key boxes prepared […]
I just went to the biggest arcade in America. I went to play through the history of arcade games, in chronological order. Here’s my biggest takeaway: Every game designer needs to play modern Pinball machines. Hear me out. Once a quarter, I go deep into a game genre I never play. I learn everything I […]
Have your players ever groaned when they got a notification they had a bunch of unclaimed rewards? Mine have. That’s not a good sign. Legends of Runeterra had this problem. The game wanted to be generous, so it gave out so many free rewards that opening them became an annoyance. Riot Games gives devs free […]
Just ran a 5-hour session on how to design monetization systems. So many studios miss the beautiful reality of games: designers are alchemists. If you know what youโre doing, your designs can increase the value of your gameโs goals and rewards. If something feels like itโs worth $5, then you have a lot of trouble […]
Counter-intuitively, a common reason that players are afraid to waste consumable items is that the items are too weak – not too strong. Devs often reduce the impact of consumables so players will be less afraid to waste them, or out of game balance concerns so they can ensure players can overcome all of a […]
The first few mintues of your game make a crazy amount of difference. Getting Over It worked because people knew what they were getting into. In the opening dev explains the point of the game and what’s about to happen. He tells you that this is a game about the frustration of starting over. You’re […]
I haven’t yet failed a take-home design test. Might be luck, but I’ve always made it to the next round. This is my top advice: Test-readers are exhausted, so get to the point in the first sentence. Explain your deeper reasoning as a follow-up. End before the reader gets bored. ^ Like that. Every word […]
“Modder’s Law – The more meticulously hand-crafted the game, world, and lore, the more fun it is to make an absolute mess of it.” Replacing Skyrim’s dragons with Thomas the Tank Engine is fun because it’s ridiculous. Players like the feeling of getting away with something, doing things in ways other than the devs expected. […]
A few days ago I posted here about the Machine Guarding technique. I talked about how this idea from industrial manufacturing helped our team solve one of the game’s peristent annoyances, and how it was a huge win that had no meaningful downside. It’s as close to “strictly better” an improvement as you can get. […]
Dan Felder 