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

3. Dungeon Bounce

Click to play! More thoughts tomorrow

I love playing Dungeon Bounce for a bit. There is a very small decision space though. It's fun, but I'm not sure how to deepen my relationship to the game. It's based on a dynamic from Patrick's Arithmetic Bounce, and then torcado also did Ribbit Digits, and they're all based off an apparently very simple compelling core loop - doing small math under time pressure.

2. chords

No prototype available, but I'd like to make one.

+

It really is terrible not having a pause button! And the way you can lose all your progress by slipping up... oof, that hurts. I boost jumped into the darkness a moment before it would have been the right time, and man, does that suck! hahaha. This game is not particularly kind.

External Context Problems
Answers questions regarding why someone plays games. Examples:
- "I play this game when I'm bored, until I get tired of it"
- "I play this game during my lunch break"
- "I play this game during my spare time before bed, until I've finished it"
- "I coordinate a time to play this game with a large group of friends, then we all get together and play it"

These are all different contexts and require different high-level context design patterns to serve them.
(Note that these are not patterns, they are just descriptions of a way someone would play a game... patterns would be designed to solve these 'problems'. These are more like fake case studies. Seeds.)

Game Structure Pattern
How is the content of the game laid out?
- There are 16 randomly-generated levels. If you run out of HP, you restart at the beginning. If you quit, you restart at the beginning.
- There are 8 dungeons connected by an overworld. (At any given point in the game, how many places can you go next? How many dead ends are there?) (Do you know where you have to go next? Do you have a choice?)

This is hard to describe, in part because it has so many subpatterns. Also, using exact numbers is not really pattern-y ("8 dungeons"), but these are not patterns, they are again... just seeds.

"several dungeons connected by an overworld" could be a pattern. maybe it could solve the context/problem "i want a game to play during my spare time before bed over the course of a month or two, to chip away at until it's finished, and to come away with a sense of mastery and satisfaction."

1. "Chaotic Playgrounds" (Sep 25) - Platformer with parameterized goals and resources



I like this because of how many different parameters there are that would be worth playing with. It's just a simple scene with simple interactions, but you can play it completely differently given different stats and goals. Collect 10 crystals and touch no demons. Kill all the demons, breaking no crystals along the way. Collect all crystals, with a minimal number of jumps and demons... At the time I made this prototype I was thinking about it as an infinite playspace, I wanted to present it as-is, for a person to make their own fun. But, since we're going for a pitch, I can certainly imagine designing a structure that would help you explore a beautifully curated play-space. (See: Starseed Pilgrim's 10 islands.) Maybe the 'sandbox mode' could still exist? (Level designing/sharing tool? Oath's legacy mechanics?)

I'm going to be going over all the little things I made over the past year or two... they're prototypes, I guess? I don't want to call them prototypes rather than games or toys, but through the lens of the commercial games pitch, they're prototypes.

The subway is nodes of various sizes connected by lines. That's exciting to me.

Okay, going in a wildly different direction, Envisioning Information (Edward R. Tufte)
I think I got this book from Raigan when Metanet was moving and getting rid of a bunch of books :)
I'm not into fields of numbers, but I love huge, messy grids of lines, I love maps, symbols... yeah, I love maps, icons, and lines - of different colours and widths and characters can be especially beautiful.

- I never did get attached to Animal Crossing's villagers.

I'll also mention Dungeon Meshi, which has a similar feeling... a little tight-knit crew of characters who stick together and go on a quest. This is a strong emotional core that I can't get away from! Check out my (process) Emergent Characters pattern, and my favourite example games from that thread:

- Tamagotchi, Long Live The Queen (Princess makers)
- Shadow of Mordor, Tic-Tac-Crow (Nemesis System)
- Pokemon, Etrian Odyssey, Disgaea, X-COM (Customizable combat party)
- Dwarf Fortress (???)

Black Company - Likewise a long story about a mostly small number of characters, though there are a great number of other things going on I feel like it's all about this steady cast.

Cast of characters. A legacy board game like Oath has a 'steady cast of characters': the players themselves ourselves.

Girls' Last Tour - Lonely but not lonely. Lonely together? The two characters have a nice bit of banter between them... Do I want to write this banter, or merely suggest it, or inspire it in a player / in players? These are such different ways to explore a relationship. I don't think I like writing in games: see Writing inspired by the feeling of RPG book tables and Rules Express Lore. Hmmm. I don't want to write or read about a long-term relationship. So that leaves suggesting its existence and/or causing players to act it out themselves.

Shimeji Simulation (by the same author) - more surreal. there are other characters, but the vibe is kinda similar? they're not surrounded by characters all the time and most of the plots are about their relationship

Calvin & Hobbes

Hi, droqen here!
Today we're going to be designing a videogame pitch to a videogame company!
But first, don't forget to like and subscribe! And hit that notification bell!

Actually first, what's important is for me to figure out some big thematic inspirations- like, am I interested in a game set in space, on Earth, or in your mind? I should probably figure out some motifs that I find myself returning to again and again...

If I'm going to promise to make something, I had really better be sure I can uphold my end of the bargain.

At the bottom end of working for myself, every action became laced with a fear that it's not enough. While I think this was driven by not having enough money, it was very much a mindset thing. If you're rolling dice are you excited about the high end, worried about the low end, or just expecting the average? The mindset I want to get back into is to think about money in this middle space, where I have moderate expectations that I fully expect to meet.

I've experienced this high end -- Starseed Pilgrim -- and now I've experienced the low end. Failing and losing a bunch of money sucks. It happened over the course of a literal decade, though, and I didn't really even notice it happening.

Maybe I should have listened to my mom and gone to business school.

Maybe not, though ;) I'll just work with or for someone else who knows how to deal with this stuff. Save myself for game design.

At the heart of all this: worrying about money is poison. The flipside is that I've finally come to value financial stability over spiky "wow what if this blows up" gambling-on-experimental-game-design dreams. Now that I value it, I just have to learn how to find it :')