something i'm fond of is designing levels first by composition (i.e. using a tile editor to draw a bunch of tiles that look good) and then to find a way to make it enjoyable to play. i came to think about this process more clearly after reading bennett foddy's piece on mkapolk's process of designing "[fr0g] clan official server 24/7 zk map (for stranger)":

QuoteMy process for making the levels was to scatter geometry more or less randomly and then try to traverse it. Sometimes when I was going down a map if I thought that an area shouldn't be a dead end I'd add some more stuff to it, but that's about as far as it went.

but maybe i should have realized it earlier when i heard sylvie's description of how she designed JIGGLY ZONE

-- actually i don't know where i heard this. was it from sylvie herself? (researching)

Rillettes - would not get it again

*like more fibrous spam
*nice, but not worth the expense

TODO! Remember to use prefab chunks in proc gen, or at least remember to nest proc gen functions inside other proc gen functions. That will help you scale up.

WHEW! That's everything from 2021, except for released games.

12. 'RUNTS' simulation (text-only)

https://droqen.itch.io/runts-sim

A gene pool sim designed to explore the viability of a 'runt' gene -- is it possible for a selfless adaptation to thrive and flourish given fluctuating natural pressure to survive? CONCLUSION: a single mutation will die out some of the time! but if a single child carrying a runt gene can survive long enough to have children, there is a chance that they will pass on the gene to their children. These runt-gene-carrying children will sacrifice themselves for the sake of the non-runt children, which seems to only benefit non-runts, but if by chance the gene takes hold, runt families are significantly stronger and survive better. A few families taking a foothold is all it takes for the gene to spread across the entire population across many generations: a gene which an individual would never select for if natural selection were only driven by selfishness.

Not sure how I'd take a system like this and make it into a game, but it is certainly interesting...

11. MOSTLY JUICE/ATMOSPHERE, but still worth looking at :) Love the way these look/feel.

10. Grid of Random Directions



There's so much you can do with a grid of random directions... This isn't a game yet, but with the proper player resource it could be. The field is too large/unbounded to be particularly enjoyable, but this is fun with just 2 grid-bound actions: jump 1 space in the direction indicated, jump 2 spaces in the direction indicated. You can get stuck, the tiles which are accessible is unclear... oof. It just feels cool and emergent.

9. Weird Platformer Mechanics

Cruel World, but also this gif:


There's something here... just, a jump button that does make you jump, but in different ways depending on context? I think CW is a lot more intuitive and good-feeling than this gif, but the fact that they both play in the same space... there's something worthwhile here.
better gif

---

There's also this one! Triple dash. There's sort of a light anti-gravity effect going on while you're doing a dash, and each dash is a bit longer than the one before it.

note to self: there are other non-platformers in 0813-SnackPrescription

8. DR. Prototypes



Just one example of this - a tile-based movement game where moving is potentially harmful?
In this case, think about these characters as patients who might be infectious/contagious, so moving one past another makes them both flash 'red' to indicate that a virus or something might have been passed from one to the other.

There was another prototype (not pictured) where moving around inside the patient's body caused them damage, but you needed to do so in order to 'scan' the grid which represented the interior of their body for worse damage, and of course you needed to do even more to actually resolve the damage safely (by block-push-puzzling the viruses and things out of their interior body grid).

7. Medusa analyzer



I think like the above game this is like a digital paper prototype ... maybe I need to think about how to apply this kind of thing as a tool for ultimately designing a more real-time game? Combining limited things. Exchanging resources.

edit: And, dealing with randomness (e.g. how likely is it that "Speak to it" will be successful?)... let's pull that from Starseed Pilgrim too, it has visible, spatial randomness! That's pretty rare / exciting, actually.

6. Cut & Paste Spell Creation? (0215-idiom)

5. Various guts prototypes (0106-LifePlayground)



Entities that pathfind simply, dumbly, and collide with one another. It's pretty cool simulation space and not so hard to work with.

4. Overworld (0104-convo)



Time of day, green sprite moves on its own

Additional thought which needs to be folded into the 'Closed Systems' somehow-
Hacking games with artificial connection animations feel worse than when I am engaging with a real system's transfer and load times.
I want "A Closed System That's Doing Its Best", not a closed system that's causing me to suffer for its presentation...
It doesn't have to be doing its best to let me in, but I want the fantasy that it's doing its best according to some functional purpose.
I'm just along for the ride.

Closed Systems

I've always enjoyed things that feel like this. It's not just generation ships or things that really do go out of their way to feel like 'bottle worlds', it's also the feeling of something being... cleanly, elegantly designed, self-contained, focused. Focus is a good word.

In games, there's a very special feeling I get from full-world simulations. Heat Signature, Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, Crusader Kings 2... these games convey a sense that the entire world is 'one mode,' simulated, in a roguelike way. This isn't the only way to do this, of course...

Mount and Blade simulates a whole world in modes - you move between the world map and combat scenarios. The combat scenarios feel a bit tacked-on to me, though...

Up Close and in Real Time

On the other hand, I hate pausing these games, zooming around the whole world. No -- that's not quite true. I actually really like it, but it takes away from this feeling of wholeness, of living and breathing this world. It's seductive, having a tool so powerful available to me as a player. I love pausing these games, zooming around the whole world, and that's the problem.

I like playing Probability 0 and Dungeon Bounce. Cave Story and Dark Souls and Ynglet. I like getting into a flow, experiencing this "Up Close and in Real Time" effect.

Maybe zooming out to an overworld isn't a problem: it can give much-needed context? The problem is when the "Up Close and in Real Time" mode is unimportant, anything other than primary. Frequent interruptions have that effect on this mode for me. (Also see my above comment on Mount and Blade.)

... is this a Cursed Problem?

I'm going to have to think about this some more tomorrow.
Successful games to consider:
- Uurnog Uurnlimited
- System Shock 2
- Elona
- 31 unmarked games [Oct 25, 'Alien'] (too small though. look into scaling solutions. how do other games do it?)
- Starseed Pilgrim? (not a 'whole world', but still feels like a 'big' simulation. again a scaling thing: it's conceptually small, even if it feels traversable/large)
- Dark Souls? (maybe not a whole simulation)
- Clockwork Calamity in Mushroom World? (maybe not real-time enough)'
- Blessed Surface (I found it too... unpolished?)

Hmm. I didn't get into it. But:
- Noita