At Riot Games one of the designers reporting to me asked me a perfect question. “You’re the newest designer on the team… How do you keep getting new features on the roadmap?” I was surprised. I figured the other designers just liked the status quo. Nope, apparently they’d been trying to pitch a lot of […]
Last week, I had just 8 hours to design a combat system for a client. I’m fast, but that wasn’t enough time to design a core gameplay system. However… It was ๐ฃ๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ๐ญ๐บ enough time to design 3 of them! Surprisingly, and there’s some science on this, designing 3 solutions often takes less time and mental […]
Got a complex game? Have you tried turning the tutorial into a ๐ซ๐๐ฐ๐๐ซ๐? Curiosity is one of the strongest drivers of human motivation. It can even override rationality and survival instincts. If you put a sign on a door that says “whatever you do, DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR” we all know people are going […]
Last night, a colleague asked me how I analyze the market potential for a game’s gameplay. I told them that most people over-focus on trying to predict the game genre’s core appeal. Novel experiences become smash hits and create *new* genres after all, so there’s something else going on. I told them this: “You always […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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. […]
Many people tend to assume system design is about algorithms, spreadsheets, data, and math – and so it should be perfect for AI-based solutions. In reality, systems design is much more about figuring out how to present incentives to a player in an intuitive and sustainable way, identify the emergent consequences of how mechanics and […]
โIf you were turning on one cheat to make your game much easier to beat, what would it be? This tells you a lot more about your game than anything else.โ Heard this from a YouTuber called Surnex, and got me thinking. In reality thereโs a lot of ways to cheese the idea behind this […]
