Wasn't sure in which forum this belonged but putting it here since it's sort of an "idea-expressing" project.
w/ Mer Grazzini.
w/ Mer Grazzini.
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Show posts MenuQuote from: droqenI just realized I've been trying to design games without gates for the past 3 years. It's weird, though. I guess in general I think gates are bad. I don't like 'em. They are very useful for a lot of things and it's been important to know that. Understand your enemy.
Quote from: @wombatstuffokay so let me actually write an essay in here:
**All Game Design can be seen as Doors**
Games are full of locked doors, for good reason. It is one of the most easy to understand problems for us modern humans:
Door locked, find key, open door
You encounter a problem, solve that problem and get to continue.
All of game design is just different types of locked doors:
An enemie with 10 HP? You just got to throw 10 keys at it to open the enemie-door!
A puzzle? You just have to imagine the shape of a key in your head to open the puzzle door!
A Dialogue? You just have to use the key of reading text to open the dialogue door!
This framing helps to get to the core of a game quickly.
Because, in the end, each game locks some of its content behind a door.
To understand a game, you just have to understand what is a key and what is a door.
So a weapon upgrade is not a part of a combat system, it just means your keys can now open doors faster, a new puzzle mechanic is a Door that needs a new type of puzzle key, etc.
Basically, this system allows you to frame everything in a game through a single, unified lense, which helps you to see a game in its whole-ness, even if that hole-ness is key shaped!
Quote from: Jason Grinblatan mmo whose servers are only accessible when it's raining in your area
Quotei'm playing a lot of Cinco Paus again, and I've been thinking about
~ ❈ The Treasure Cap ❈ ~
What is it?
A vivo (run) in Cinco Paus is divided into 50 jogos (games) of 5 zonas (zones) each. To survive, you'll need to find ways to create lots of the 5 types of treasure, which open doors, heal, identify spells, build into permanent upgrades, and score points.
Within each zona, you are only allowed to create 10 treasures total. After that, treasure creation abilities will do nothing.
How does it play?
Often, you don't notice it. In most zonas, you never come close to 10.
Sometimes, it's crucial — there exist some rare infinite combos in the game, and if there were no cap, you could never leave and farm infinite points. (infinites were still a bit too strong, so the latest build has an additional anti-infinite measure.)
In between those cases, it's frustrating! The game is all about optimizing limited resources, using one wand to do 3 different things. But sometimes, you optimize a bit too well, and suddenly you're left with extra treasure wands you can't use.
Doesn't that suck?
No. It's amazing actually.
Complex systems naturally give rise to narrow, degenerate strategies. Many games suffer from wide-open possibility spaces that you should just ignore if you want to play optimally. The treasure cap resists this. Instead, advanced play means evaluating your position early, realizing you're likely to cap next zona, and thus going out of your way to burn your resources "inefficiently" so that they won't be completely wasted later.
This is a very exciting kind of play! Using tools that are normally very valuable to set up tiny bits of marginal advantage because you're just too rich to use all of them normally is such a unique and delightful feeling. More games should punish you for doing too well — as long as they provide outlets for you to preempt this by spending your resources in "worse" ways that are still better than nothing.
Quote from: @nihilocrat / Kenny Backuswhat is a better way of naming things in a sci-fi videogame?
[48.8%] "laser cannon"
[51.2%] "crepusculant lucifer"
84 votes
Quote from: The Books of the South, p327Her schemes could kill thousands, could distress millions, and to her it was play.
[He said, ]"I'll never understand you."
[...]She was neither young nor empty-headed. "I don't understand myself. But I gave up trying a long time ago. It's distracting."
Games. From the first she had been involved in tortuous maneuvers and manipulations, to no obvious end. Her great pleasure was to watch a scheme flower and devour its victim.