Questions tagged [game-design]
Game Design is the process of deciding the rules and mechanics of a game, and solving balancing problems to achieve the intended play experience. For questions about design of software code, use the Software Engineering or Algorithm tags instead. Likewise, questions about visual design should use Art or Graphics tags.
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Do customizable blank-slate protagonists limit the narrative potential of action RPGs?
I am examining protagonist design in action RPGs, and my conclusion so far is that fixed, authored protagonists consistently allow for deeper and more effective storytelling than blank-slate ...
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What is the difference betwen emotions, experience, theme, and pleasure in the context of the Book of Lenses?
I am reading the third edition of The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell, and I encounter multiple concepts presented as different, but I do not see much difference. Currently, these ...
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How can I design a reward system that keeps players motivated in my mobile educational app?
I have a mobile app that allows for younger students / children to practice the multiplication tables.
2 x 2 = 4
3 x 2 = 6
To make the app more encouraging, I am planning to add some gamification in ...
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Preventing meta communication in a massive multiplayer game
In developing a 4x multiplayer game where players should cooperate to implement any of the four Xs. I am interested in containing all information about the world and characters (players location, ...
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How can I encourage players to play optimally against bosses?
I am making a shoot em up game with an aerial view. It’s main gimmick is that, instead of working like a machine-gun, your character throws a boomerang that hit the enemies both on the way there and ...
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Number system with restricted set of sequence configurations
I am trying to design a novel number system for a game.
To do this, I want to create a mapping from a set S of symbols to the integers, where not all sequences of symbols from S are allowed, but they ...
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Best way to structure code for a character dependent on its environment and vice versa
What is the neatest way in a strict OOP language (c++ say) to avoid the following circular dependency. Imagine I create a character class and a world class. A character requests data from the world to ...
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Why did my game get rejected by CrazyGames? Looking for feedback on first impressions [duplicate]
I recently submitted my HTML5/WebGL game to CrazyGames.com, but unfortunately it was rejected without specific feedback.
Here’s the preview link:
https://www.crazygames.com/preview/25901363-36f7-4d64-...
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How to provide skill ratings for many related but disjunct properties (players, decks, etc.)?
My girlfriend and I are designing a small app to track our Magic The Gathering games. We want to use our game data to rate our decks, ourselves and generate game suggestions.
Elo seems like the ...
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Looking for a way to handle/define area of effect attacks in a 2D grid based game
I am working on a top down 2D grid based game, where as it is currently, units have a movement and an attack range. An example of this:
The blue squares are tiles the selected unit can move to, the ...
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How do you decide a base threshold for leveling up in a game?
This was a question asked during an interview, and I was absolutely stumped.
Let's say that there's a levelling system in the game. If you defeat an enemy, you get "n" XP. By the time you ...
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How to avoid cycles when one character stat can be enhanced by another?
I am creating an ability system in Unity and it is currently able to update base values of stats and keep track of persistent buffs/debuffs while taking operation order into account (Add, Increase, ...
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How to solve the “stuck on a level, the next level is locked” problem
Suppose I’ve got a game which is split into levels (level 1, level 2, etc).
I might decide on locking levels. That is, when a player first boots up the game, they can only play level 1. Once they have ...
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Slot reels RTP(return to player) estimation
I am making a slot game with 3 x 5 reels. The RTP I am targeting is 99%. My reel data is given as (yaml):
...
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Proc-gen, turn-based game demo with level limit. Should it offer daily challenges instead of preset seeds?
I recently published a demo for my new, turn-based word puzzle, set in a fantasy world (called "Dragon Riddler" -- it's on Steam).
The game loop is this:
find the dragon's lair in a land ...
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Can I Create a Camera System in Pygame Without Using Classes?
I am working on a basic side scroller platformer in Pygame. I want to add a camera system that tracks the camera and scrolls the world and I want to make the camera systems without using Classes. ...
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Reasoning about quest and story deadlocks etc
Are there frameworks for reasoning about questions such as: Given my quest and level design, is it guaranteed that for any combination of player choices there is no way for the player to lock ...
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How do you design novel game mechanics?
I have been wondering how do people come up with super creative new games? For example when I think about the snake genre of video games, I can think of several evolutions which revolutioned the genre....
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How can procedural generation be used to create meaningful quest structures in open-world games?
I'm working on an open-world game and exploring procedural generation to design dynamic quests. The goal is to make quests feel connected and impactful, rather than randomly generated or repetitive.
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Is it too restrictive to require players to authenticate after 5 levels?
I made a little browser based puzzle game and the most bothersome feedback I got is in regards with the authentication, why do I force people to create accounts to play more than 5 levels.
My response ...
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Designing a skill rating system for a game based on reaction speed and accuracy
I am making an online version of Egyptian Rat Screw, which is a card game mainly involving reacting as fast as possible to specific scenarios. I want to have a way to grade a player's skill level ...
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Teaching my players to be sensitive with their mouse input
I'm making a game where the player can move about by moving the mouse left and right. In particular, the speed at which you move the mouse controls how fast you move left or right in game.
The problem ...
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As a solo developer, how best to avoid underestimating the difficulty of my game due to knowledge/experience of it?
In designing many different types of games where a player's skill is a factor in progressing through the game, one is able to put challenges ahead of a player of varying difficulties. For example, in ...
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Turn-Based Cardgame Player vs AI with Monte Carlo Tree Search
I'm currently developing a turn-based card game where you play against an AI opponent. Both you and your opponent have a certain deck of cards at your disposal, and the rules of the game apply to both ...
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How to define ammunition capacity
I work on a space combat/exploration game, and I got to a point where I require external opinions.
The setup is this: A space ship can have 2-4 weapons, each weapon can have 2-4 ammo types. Ammo types ...
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How to add skill expression to a text based turn based game?
I’m working on a text based and turn based roguelite. I want to have some way of requiring more skill than just mastery of the characters abilities. The dilemma I’m facing is that I’m not sure how to ...
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Status effect duration decrease in a turn-based game
I'm trying to implement a mechanic in a turn based game, and deciding when in the turn order a status effect's duration gets decremented.
Background:
Game is turn based, where there are two opposing ...
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How do I make roguelike class combat options unique and interesting?
My fighter character in a text based roguelike I’m working on is going to be kind of like a sleeper mage due to their spell list and now I’m wondering how to make my mage unique
If I give the mage ...
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What do game studios look for in entry level resumés for designers?
(Inspired by this question which was closed as unclear. I'm attempting to focus on one part of what that querant was asking.)
What do game studios look for when hiring entry level designers? Are there ...
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The quest for a Wiki-less Game
I often see that a community will make a wiki for games that have a large amount of elements, I am attempting to create an in-game application of a "wiki" keeping track of what has been ...
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How to avoid stagnating gameplay in a Non-Linear game? [closed]
In open world games, the progression, in most cases, is Non-Linear leading to players either going through the game at an extremely fast pace, or others stagnating without understanding what to do.
Im ...
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Is it ok to name my game "theme park administrator"? [closed]
English is not my primary language so, I'm wondering, is it ok to name my game "Theme park administrator" ?
Would "Theme park universe" be a better name ?
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What are the implications on play experience when giving the player hints in a game that asks players to figure out concepts and abilities?
I've recently come up with a decently hard video game concept where the player needs to figure out concepts and abilities in order to use them. There is no tutorial or anything similar showing them ...
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How do you determine what order to process chained events/interactions?
I'm trying to write a top-down tactics RPG game in python, and run into the first major decision I can't make with my limited knowledge of RPG fundamentals.
In our game you create a team of characters ...
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Are unsafe attacks necessary in combat systems?
I have been studying a lot of combat systems across various genres of games, and from those that I have seen, having unsafe attacks seems to be quite a common staple. But I am not sure why? I think I ...
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How can damage be quantified in a game-agnostic way?
We're all familiar with the usual pattern in games where players have "100 health", which is typically meant to represent an abstract percentage. Or, some games may use different numbers.
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How to make classes (Warrior/Archer/Mage) feel unique in an idle game?
I'm making an idle game for PC, Steam, called Infinite Forest Idle.
The main game loop is:
Click "Start Adventure"
Your character starts fighting monsters, monsters drop stuff you need to ...
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How to make the character selection screen? [duplicate]
Hi to everyone i want to make the character selection screen the following 2 are scripts
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Ethical and Unethical methods of developing a game
I am wondering what methods I should and shouldn't do for making a game.
An example of what I am asking is, how do I stop people getting addicted to my game and play for many hours on end?
What ways ...
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Should I be worried about reverse engineering revealing secrets?
I saw in the past that some games' mechanics have been revealed in details because of reverse engineering, and even the entire source code sometimes.
I'm working on a C++ game with some deeper secret ...
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making a 5 minute Metroidvania prototype and wanna know if my dev process is good
I've been learning Godot and game dev as a whole since the start of this year and I've sunk dozens of hours into practicing making games in it, lately I've set out to make a very small sort of "...
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Simple or Complicated mechanics, what benefits they have and should I be worried about overcomplication?
When creating a game, is it better to have complicated but interesting mechanics, or simple and understandable mechanics?
From a design point of view, I can understand that simple mechanics can be ...
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How to add natural barriers or obstacles without impeding vision?
I am working on a natural, fairly small, grassland like environment/level. I have a few natural, minimally intrusive paths (something like this) throughout it to help guide players to the main weenies ...
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How would you intentionally create overlapping rooms with procedural generation?
It seems like every procedural dungeon generation tutorial focuses on how to avoid overlapping rooms, so how would one go about intentionally overlapping those rooms instead, possibly treating the ...
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Making games for yourself with a story?
I want to develop games for myself. Sadly, I'm limited to making text-based things (though this does have some practical benefits). The biggest limitation though is none of my games can really have a '...
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How do you effectively induce "berserk" player behaviour?
I have recently been wondering, how can you "induce player behaviour" in a video game
An example of what I am thinking of is when a player uses an ability like "rage" or "...
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How do I go about creating an interesting progression for metal refinement for my automation RPG? [closed]
So, I'm having trouble devising a progression system for metal refinement in my game concept. I've tried doing research for it, but while I am trying to be realism focused (at least for automation, ...
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What is the point of a "rebirth" mechanic in a game?
There are many (mini)games which revolve around the player collecting points to buy upgrades (think Cookie Clicker, ROBLOX simulator games, etc.). Most of these games have a mechanic called "...
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How to allow replaying levels in story mode
I'm working on a game that focuses on a campaign/story mode for the majority of the content; the player progresses their character, collecting items/currency/upgrades along the way, and playing levels ...
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Audio Cue for Accuracy game
I'm really not sure if this is the appropriate community to ask in. I want to use some sort of audio cue that provides feedback for a player's accuracy in a task. They perform some action in real time ...
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