Game Design - Blog Posts

I've been working on a concept for a game for over a year(physical/ in a sketchbook 😂) I hope you all will like what I have for you soon!

The Date a Cryptid Project has been approved!!!

I'm really excited to work on this game! I will try my best to post and notify you all when something's happening!

In the mean time I can give you some info about what the game will be about:

* the game will be PG-13 and it's for an assignment so there will be will be no gore, suggestive or explicit material

* the game will be some what of a parody of dating simulators but don't worry you still can romance your monsters ❤

* there are four planned routes but hopefully I will be able to add more after the demo.

*the demo will come out near the end of feburary so keep your eyes peeled

Unfortunately I can not post more professional art of the game because my computer screen is busted, but in the mean i hope you enjoy this silly concept art

IVE HAND DRAWN 183 SPRITES FOR THIS GAME IM MAKING AND IM NOT EVEN DONE AGHHHHH

@bockyblock

The Baba Is You modding community is sort of the exact opposite of every other video gaming modding community in that the troll levels are actually more interesting and accessible than the ones that purport to take the game and its design principles seriously. The "serious" level packs are like "here's a level that expects you to keep track of thirty plus unmodifiable rules and accepts exactly one valid solution which obliges you to carry out a two hundred step procedure to pile six different instructions on top of each other and exploit an obscure text stacking priority mechanic in a way that's deeply counterintuitive but technically base-game legal", while the "troll" level packs are like "let's see how long it takes them to notice that the pause button is an interactable object", and I'm 100% prepared to argue that the latter is more true to the base game's driving ethos than the former.

Sometimes you've gotta take received wisdom in tabletop RPG design and do the exact opposite on purpose, just to see what happens. I've got a vaguely superhero-adjacent RPG I'm working on right now that flips the whole "the player characters' actions should never result in an NPC's death unless that was their explicit intention" thing turnways and makes it literally impossible to engage in physical coercion of any kind toward another person without some non-zero likelihood of accidentally killing the target in the process, and let me tell you, it's resulted in some fun "okay, how are we going to do this" conversations.

all video games should have a “I’m shit at video games but I’m curious about the story and I don’t want to watch a let’s play” mode

Part one of my horror game ocs as stupid pinterest images

I'm so tired

Nerf that Ring of Flight by making it the ring itself that flies, while wearing it, you can move the ring through the air in any direction at will. How the character manages to keep the ring on their finger, and their finger on their hand, is the player's problem.

YOU are the Snowflake of whom the Prophecies foretold!

me & my bestie made a game ...

so. it was a long very long module in uni 😭😭😭 although in reality it was too short BUT we managed to make the coolest, prettiest and cleanest game we ever made lmao !!! this is a game about food festival but not just any food — national food !!

and you can check it out for yourself !!! sadly it's only on russian bc we're a lil team of two students and we do not have the resourses for a translation on english. but you can still play 'cuz all you need to know is how to count numbers hehe )))

feel free to leave comments on itch !!!

i've made a game ...

so. i've been making a game for a uni project. and here it is !!

a side-scroller with combined 2d and 3d graphics, where you play as an armenian girl ditsui, searching for her little sister with the help of goddess spandaramet.

you can check it out for youself :))) feel free to play and leave feedback in the comments !!

Following Spandaramet by meryajan

Game dev blog is live!

Check out @eclipsettrpg for more!

I made a script that reads pixels from a sprite and converts it into a mesh and colors it.

THE EVOLUTION OF CHARACTERS

Oh my sweet freakin' GLOB! http://imgur.com/I6oxlfG http://imgur.com/2e2zhcE What do you all think? Opinions? :s Which one do you like more and why?

Say Hi.. to BUTTSTALLION! This slick golden bad boy, carries on our hopes and dreams!

Approx Time: 2.5 hours to Draw

Hazbin Hotel as a turn based RPG style game

A random thought experiment I think about from time to time, what if a turn based role playing game was made with the Hazbin cast? Warning this post gets kind of long and rambly.

A few ground rules:

1) All characters are given equal power level (so Lucifer is about as strong as Niffty). In game I feel like this would be explained by the crew getting transported to some alternate game world that equalized their capabilities.

2) I’m imagining that each battle would have up to 3 characters on your side of the field (possibly more on the enemy’s side idk). You would be able to choose which characters would fight, and having characters fight alongside each other would increase their relationship (more on that later)

3) There are 7 status conditions each tied to one of the 7 deadly sins. Certain characters are immune to certain statuses (Alastor would be immune to lust of course). Certain characters can benefit from being afflicted with a certain status (Lucifer with pride perhaps?) I’ll get in to my specific ideas for each one later.

4) For stats I’m defaulting to Pokémon’s HP Attack Special Attack Special Defense and Speed, but that could change. Might drop Specials. Might add something like Crit Chance or Accuracy. Not fully decided.

5) Some character have “pets” that fight alongside them giving small bonuses. Like Sir Pentious’s Egg Bois. These pets can be swapped with their teammates once they get a high enough level of friendship.

6) Speaking of friendship, so I’m thinking characters don’t actually level up in this, instead they gain friendship with other party members. Leveling up specific friendships give the stat bonuses normal level ups would have given. Additionally they will unlock moves based on the friendship, these moves will often synergize with the character the friendship was gained from.

7) This is a bit ambitious, but I’m thinking each pairing will have a romantic/platonic option. This would not affect stats in any way but instead affect the cutscenes that would play, both having specific one on one cutscenes for the characters and changing the language used for each other in regular cutscenes.

8) I’m thinking that each character gets a passive special ability or two that could be double edged. Often tying into the amount of HP they or their allies have left. More on that with each character.

9) This takes place after episode 5 but before the finale. So Lucifer is introduced, and Sir Pentious is still a demon. Undecided if it takes place before or after Vaggie is revealed to be an angel.

Ok so now for each character summery! This will just be a general overview of their role/capabilities. No specific stats or moves.

Charlie

A support/healer character, who gets scary powerful when she or her allies are low on health. At the start of the fight she mostly focuses on raising the stats of the entire team and healing HP/status conditions. But at the end of the fight, especially if she’s the last one standing, she can fight enemies herself with demonically powerful attacks.

Special ability: Raises Attack when she or her allies are at critical health.

Shared move example: Power of Self Love: heals status conditions and resets stats to self

Main stat shared: HP

Pet: Razzle and Dazzle

Vaggie

More balanced between offense and defense. Does not deal too much with changing stats or applying debuffs or status effects, just deals damage and takes damage well. Also has a counterattack that can be shared with high friendship. Like all characters, gaining skills from others helps round out her kit.

Special ability: Can counter incoming hits to allies she has high friendship with.

Shared move example: Counter: small automatic attack done to enemies that hit you

Main stat shared: Attack

Pet: Kee-Kee (since Charlie already has Razzle and Dazzle and doesn’t need 2 (well 3) pets.) I guess Kee-Kee could be Lucifer’s pet instead?

Angel Dust

Would spread statuses like Lust and Envy, and have multi hitting attacks that could target multiple enemies. Wouldn’t take hits as well as Charlie or Vaggie. Would have some redirection/distraction moves as well.

Special ability: Something to do with having multiple arms…

Shared move example: Showtime!: Redirects next oncoming attack to user

Main stat shared: Defense

Pet: Fat Nuggets!!!!

Alastor

Would be annoying to enemies: spreading statuses like Wrath, lowering stats, adding shadows to the field to distract enemies (sort of like substitutes that can deal damage). Would do extra damage to enemies suffering a status condition. Would have low HP and would loose abilities when at critical health (I imagine his cane breaking).

Special ability: Shadow Step: increases evasion the more shadows are on the field

Main stat shared: Defense

Example of shared move: Smile, Deer: gives chance of inflicting Wrath on enemies.

Pet: Shadow Poppets (his main shadow is too tied to him)

Niffty

DPS. Glass Cannon kind of character that can do huge damage but falls easily. Also has a “tidy up” type move that clears field hazards and raises the team’s speed.

Special ability: Raises attack when effected by a status condition

Shared move example: Channeling yourInner Bad Boy: raises Attack

Main stat shared: Speed

Pet: Roaches? Maybe not everyone gets a pet haha

Husk

Has a mixed role, with a lot of attacks having an element of luck to them. Would have a “stack the deck” type move that would bring make his moves more favorable. He would also have the ability to analyze combatants, being able to tell for example if Wrath would cause them to hit themselves next turn, or if Envy or Sloth will activate.

Special ability: Something to do with stack the deck or analyze?

Shared move example: Prioritize: Raises chance to hit selected opponent when afflicted by Wrath

Main shared stat: Attack

Pet: none (does booze count as a pet?)

Sir Pentious

Would be a very technical character, with powerful attacks and combos that require set up (building the machine, activating it, etc). Would also have some support options. I feel like he could take advantage of being affected by Envy.

Special ability: Commander: allies get a passive bonus to Speed and Accuracy

Shared move example: Endure: Will survive next round with at least one HP

Main shared stat: HP

Pet: Egg Bois

Cherri Bomb

Would have powerful ranged attacks that could hit multiple opponents and lower their stats. Might also have some timer bomb moves that go off in later turns. Could maybe benefit from statuses like Gluttony.

Special ability: Explosive: Something to do with bombs?

Shared move example: Let Loose: Being affected by Gluttony raises your attack and speed

Main shared stat: Attack

Pet: none

Lucifer

The final character I’m mapping out (thought about doing the Vees but we don’t know enough about them yet I feel). Would be the shapeshifter type character whose role could change depending on his form. Would definitely benefit from Pride, perhaps would have it by default? And could spread it of course. Probably have some abilities tying into being an angel and creator as well.

Special ability: Shapeshifter: can change forms at the start of his turn.

Shared move example: Something circus or duck themed would be funny

Main shared stat: Balanced (equal chance for all stats)

Pet: Kee-Kee or none (depending on if Vaggie gets her or not)

The Statuses/Sins

Pride: Cannot be healed.

Wrath: Confusion would be a good blueprint, would have the chance to attack allies or themselves.

Lust: Poison like in that damage is done at the end of each turn. *insert Angel Dust sex joke here*

Greed: Steals stat buffs, healing, etc from allies, and can’t heal or apply stat buffs to others. Buffs that help the whole team just apply to them. If multiple allies have greed, no stat buffs can be applied. Lowers friendship gained from allies.

Gluttony: Damage healed and damage taken is raised.

Envy: May copy an ally’s stat change (both raise or lowered), damage taken, or damage healed. Copying a stat change happens after greed’s effect.

Sloth: Sleep or drowsy like. Chance of not moving on your turn. Speed is also lowered. I guess it’s more like Pokémon’s paralysis now that I think about it.

Aaaand that’s about it. Running out of steam so I’m just going to post this. Will maybe make amendments and additions later.

Oc or whatever

Wildstar, Character Design, Female Objectification, Sexual Dimorphism and Biology in Video Games

We need to talk about the character designs in Wildstar.

We need to talk about the character designs in all science fiction and fantasy franchises that feature non-humans.

Wildstar is a science-fiction MMO currently in beta, developed by Carbine Studios. The general thrust of Wildstar is something along the lines of Firefly, Star Wars, and Ratchet & Clank; not exactly a grimdark sci-fi thriller. The mechanical features look interesting and the art style, in and of itself, is really vivid—but what they’re doing within the style?

Well.

The NDA dropped on a bunch of Wildstar content and character creation videos are up. You can watch them all, but here I’m just going to focus on the Granok, Draken, and Mechari.

Read More

A special feeling of joy

There is a very special feeling of joy when you write a game, pour your heart and soul into it, then take it to a convention, and play it with a bunch of strangers... and they tell you that they want to play it next year! That's IT, right there. It's wonderful.

SO much validation!

Not Equal At All

Not Equal At All

Game Design Essay

Introduction

Many game systems offer a variety of choices or options during character creation; the general thinking among these options is that they are, in theory, “equal” to one another.  In other words, while there may be specific reasons to pick one or another for certain purposes, they can all be chosen without fear of one choice being clearly superior to the others, or at least close enough to not hinder gameplay and player enjoyment.  But this isn’t always the case, and in some games where very coarse-grained choices are part of the process, a wrong choice can have a heavy impact on character capabilities.  Let’s look over some examples.

(For the purposes of this essay, I’m NOT looking at comparative resource costs to get the same result, which is the bane of certain more-complex character creation systems, but instead circumstances where players may have a handful of choices to make.  The topics are similar, however.)

Broadness of Application

One area that this will often matter is broadness of application; if a character has a trait that can only be used in limited circumstances, they may feel very limited in play compared to a character with traits that can be used in a variety of ways.  Extremely freeform traits, such as Aspects in FATE, are susceptible to this problem.  (The FATE rulebook does provide guidelines, but it can still take experience to see the difference in application between Can Make Machines Purr and “Okay, I’m going for it!”  One is good for technological challenges, but the other could be used for almost anything.)

But sometimes, these issues with broad application are actually built into the system.  One example of this is the Sentinel Comics RPG.  PCs built in this game have two Principles in their Abilities list; without getting into game mechanics and probability too heavily, these are actually a very important resource for characters, because they allow characters to use the Overcome action with a dramatically improved success rate.  (The odds of complete success jump from extremely roughly 2% to 43%; PCs should rely on them a lot!)  Principles are selected off a list (and the full range of choices is sharply curtailed depending on character type), and everybody will always have precisely and only two of them, so they should, in theory, always be comparable.

But they aren’t.  An Overcome in SCRPG is, roughly speaking, beating a challenge that is not an opponent, whether it’s persuading an official, solving a puzzle, rescuing a drowning victim, or infiltrating a warehouse.  The Principles, among other things, have a triggering circumstance in which they can be used.  For example, the Principle of Lab says “Overcome while in a familiar workspace or when you have ample research time.”  That’s good when those very specific things are involved, but it becomes a very hard stretch to rescue a drowning victim or shift a boulder out of your way.  For contrast, the Principle of the Tactician says “Overcome when you can flashback to how you prepared for this exact situation.” For that one, it becomes almost impossible for the GM to deny its use, and fairly simple for a player to justify it.  Shift a boulder?  Studied leverage just in case.  Drowning victim?  Took lifeguarding classes to know what to do, anticipating trouble.  Persuade an official?  Did research on the profiles of all of them.  One is much more broadly useful than the other, period.  A player who plans ahead and picks at least one Principle that they can use in a wide range of situations will have a distinct advantage, but a random choice might find a character who is great at knowing locals and their own business and at situations where being small and young is an advantage and nothing more.  

(And yes, very creative and/or persuasive players may be able to somehow stretch and distort their Principle to fit anything, but there’s a point where it just goes outside rational use.)

Scenario Specific

During a scenario at a gaming convention I attended last year, one of the pregen PCs had their one-and-only special trait be a bonus at piloting extraterrestrial spacecraft.  In the course of the scenario, our characters wound up on a spacecraft that we couldn’t control or pilot in any way, arriving at another spacecraft that we then took over-- and that wrapped the game.  That player never had a chance to use their specialty; it was irrelevant to the game.  Now, that’s not good design, since it was a convention game with pregen PCs, but it showcases another kind of problem with unequal choices-- scenarios where some of the options for characters don’t matter.  A classic one is a character built for social encounters who finds the group frequently in deadly combat, but there are countless other examples that are possible.  (At the same convention, I wound up with a character whose major resources were related to hacking and communications, which was fine, but the only conflict involved very dangerous enemies attacking us while we were on a highway in the middle of nowhere, and it was set in the 80s, so there wasn’t much I could do with that.)  This is at least easier to solve if the GM is involved with the characters during the creation process, and can guide them into roles relevant to the scenario, but if that doesn’t happen, it’s all too easy for a character whose focus is not relevant for the game to simply be unable to participate in the way they wanted to, and that feels like a serious loss.

Combat and Noncombat

One key area where this matters in games is, of course, combat; woe betide the player whose character lags behind others in this arena, it is known, lest they simply die!  And that’s certainly a concern-- many RPGs involve a lot of combat, combat almost always involves the entire group, often takes up a lot of table time, and inability to participate meaningfully can get somebody killed.

But that’s actually not the only consideration here.  Being combat-capable is so ingrained into game design and character design that it’s almost not the largest concern compared to noncombat application in a number of game systems.  

One of the classic examples of this is the most popular game in the US and probably worldwide-- Dungeons and Dragons, notably the current edition.  In D&D, one class is “Fighter”; Fighters… fight.  They are good in specific aspects of combat; otherwise, they have skills.  But everyone gets skills; likewise, everyone can participate in combat, often challenging Fighters in their specific area of greatest strength (Single-target combat), and utterly triumphing over them in other aspects of combat (Crowd control, for example.)  It’s doubtlessly necessary for gameplay-- it wouldn’t do to have other classes be helpless in combat, which is a large part of D&D-- but outside of combat, things change.  Fighters can have Skills, as can all classes.  But spellcasting classes gain abilities that let them bypass Skill challenges, or let them do things that no Skill could ever accomplish, and this gap grows larger and larger even as the combat abilities of spellcasters grows with it.  

But this can also impact other systems!  In a relatively freeform system like Cortex, creativity can let a trait like Senses outperform Super Strength.  It’s easy enough to justify using Senses in combat-- analyzing a foe’s movement, spotting their weaknesses and strengths, and so on.  But Senses can also be used to solve puzzles, track enemies, potentially even have application in social settings.  Likewise, in some games, it’s very possible to even use social or psychological skills in combat, perhaps by creating “Good morale” assets for other to use.  However, conversely, it’s often much, much harder to apply combat skills to noncombat situations as broadly.  Being a master archer is much harder to apply to debate than it is to find a justification for a master of persuasion being able to distract a foe or boost an ally.  In this regard, it’s a serious issue if combat-themed characters can’t do anything out of combat, but the reverse isn’t true, and it’s something that needs to be considered, either in game design or in campaign design.

Does it even matter?

Does it actually matter if characters are unequal?  This is a delicate question, and depends in part on the group and the specific players.  If the differences aren’t great, of course, it surely matters less no matter what.  But sometimes it’s easy to see where one character has noteworthy advantages over the other… and I think that it does matter, broadly, and it’s worth addressing. Some players, for example, can become frustrated with their inability to contribute, or to act effectively, and that frustration isn’t fun, the more so when it’s not obvious that some choices aren’t as good.  Likewise, even if one player doesn’t mind being less capable, other players may become frustrated with that player’s weakness and having to cover for them; the GM, in turn, may find it more challenging to balance encounters and challenges while still allowing that player spotlight time.  Overall, the less inequality between equivalent choices, the more desirable the results will be, even if it’s fine with certain players.

Solutions

When making characters, of course, one should look at options and choose carefully, but that’s not always very satisfactory.  What if one’s character concept depends on certain choices, or if it’s not obvious that there’s a problem?  Another good place to work on this problem is at the design phase of a game, of course, but that’s not an option the majority of the time; most of us play games other people have already made.  (I’m a game designer, but for a variety of reasons, mostly play other people’s systems.)

Sadly, this means that a certain amount of work on the part of the GM becomes necessary; it is, however, worthwhile.  It’s good to see what choices players make, and then play to them.  Is the player immune to something?  Make sure it shows up so that they can have their moment!  Do they have a Principle that’s great at stealth?  Give them lots of chances to sneak in places!  Make sure to give players a chance to shine by adjusting scenarios to their characters, rather than making the players adjust to the scenario.  Sometimes, it’s the only solution, but I think that it’s the best one.

Game Design and Variable Costs

This is intended to be a short essay looking at something that’s an issue in game design, specifically character creation in games. More specifically, how allocating resources during character creation can be a tricky process, and a trickier one when there are multiple resource pools that can be used for similar things, or where one kind of resource can be converted into others.

What ‘resource pools’ are isn’t always obvious. Games such as the Hero System are straightforward in this regard-- a character built with a pool of points that are spent to acquire all of the capabilities of that character, their attributes, skills, equipment, whatever other resources they have available. But other systems that allow choices to be made in character creation are, in effect, creating ‘resource pools’ of a different kind, some obvious, some less so.

For one example, the Storyteller System has characters decide how to allocate different pools of ‘dots’ to a wide range of characteristics-- and make decisions on which group of sub-characteristics receives more dots to allocate, so a character will decide to put a larger pool of dots into mental, physical or social attributes, and then spend those dots within each of those categories, and make similar choices for different categories of skills, and for a wide range of other resource types; GURPS characters, in turn, are built almost entirely of one pool of points, except that their equipment is purchased with money, instead-- and they can convert character points into money to have more to spend on equipment. Many game systems will have pools of points for different categories in a simpler approach-- so many points for attributes, so many for skills, so many for equipment.

But other costs still exist even in systems that don’t directly provide pools of points to be spread around! In Dungeons and Dragons 5e, aside from using one of several systems for allocating attributes, a very granular resource is spent on choosing an ancestry, another on a class, and later, another on a subclass. Should we view these in the same way? I think we should; this is especially important when designing ancestries, classes and subclasses, if we want to have any pretense of balance among different types of characters. (This is why I wrote extensive essays elsewhere on subclasses in D&D; class/subclass features *are a resource pool* and extremely vulnerable to balance issues.) In much the same way, a FATE character has a limited pool of Stunts and Aspects, and careful decisions should be made about how to spend them to create a character that can do what is desired.

But a pitfall of system design, and the heart of this essay, is about the difficulty of having different resource pools that can be used for similar results, either by being transformed into each other, or by being used for the same purpose. More specifically, I’m identifying pitfalls that I and others have seen in character design in some games. (I’m sorry that I will be calling out a number of specific games, including, no doubt, some that any readers I somehow get will love dearly, for what I see as weaknesses in game design, but I’m not trying to hurt anything or anyone-- just point out things that could perhaps be avoided or handled better.)

One area that this can happen is converting resource pools to other purposes. For example, in GURPS, character points can be used to buy such things as natural weapons or even superpowers-- but they can also be spent to buy such things as the Wealth advantage, which allows the character to then spend an expanded pool of money on a wide range of things, some of which *will duplicate the effects of powers.* For an easy example of this, we’ll look at GURPS Powers 4e; we see here, using an example the gamebook thoughtfully provides, that we can create a pistol that duplicates the characteristics of a TL7 Auto Pistol for 22 points… but said pistol in the character book costs $350, which is a tiny fraction of the basic money pool of a TL7 character. Yes, it’s not the same thing-- buying it as a power implies that it’s innate and cannot be removed-- but spending 22 points out of the 100-250 character points a common GURPS character might have to start with for something that they could spend 0 points for is a bit extreme; it gets more so if the characters are in a game where being unable to use their weapons in a situation where they would want to (because of theft or local laws, for example) simply doesn’t come up at all, and such games are not at all uncommon.

The original Storyteller System had a different, if related issue-- during character creation, purchasing various characteristics of almost any kind had a linear cost, but spending experience points, later, had a cost that scaled up with the current value of that characteristic sharply, while purchasing a low level of a new characteristic was much cheaper, thus letting characters who purchased high levels of a few characteristics during creation but rounding themselves out with experience later having higher and more numerous characteristics than ones who instead made broadly-based characters with low levels in a wide range of abilities, and then tried to raise them later with experience. Luckily, the later versions of the Storyteller system have been moving away from this problem, but it’s a pitfall to avoid when resources can be converted into each other, especially if character advancement *changes* how various abilities are purchased.

(In this essay, I won’t be touching on another, related issue-- point-buy systems that simply give better results per point to specific purchases. That’s highly system-specific, but always an issue to watch out for! For examples, see any discussion of how to make an efficient Hero system character.)

I think, though, where I see this issue come up most commonly is in situations where highly-granular abilities can be used for the same purpose as other abilities purchased with other resource pools. The (probably obscure) Chronicles of the Void had this issue for some characters-- a Human Varigator or Aqasoo Nova might spend one of their precious few class abilities on the ability to make ranged psionic attacks via energy manipulation or telekinesis. But that Lauxnaut Sharpshooter is instead using a gun they got as starting equipment to do comparable damage, and is using their class ability to ignore the cover of their designated target! In much the same way, I often see, for example, third-party D&D subclasses that let characters make unarmed attacks and have unarmored defenses comparable to those of characters who fight with weapons, and that sounds good until you realize that other subclasses can have the same AC, dish out just as much damage, but *still have all of their class features available for other things.* Similarly, some class features let a character create equipment that’s just as good as regular equipment, and that’s just not much of a feature at all.

This is sometimes encountered more broadly, as well-- “Defeating enemies” is a desired result in many games. Different resource pools, via powers, equipment, spells, class features, ancestry features, or anything else might contribute to this result; they may do so by inflicting damage, hindering enemies, or outright knocking them out of the fight without engaging with other subsystems, and unfortunately, sometimes, different choices made-- different prices paid-- produce dramatically different results. I’ve seen it in theory, but I’ve also seen it in actual play, time and time again. 

And I think game designers need to look carefully at their systems to ensure that this doesn’t sink their designs.

But Josh, why are you so worried about game balance? Does it really matter? Well, yes, I think it does. It can be frustrating for a player to realize that the choices that they made for whatever reason have rendered their character irrelevant in a situation. People don’t like, as a general rule, feeling helpless. Furthermore, it makes creating a balance for an enjoyable game harder when the GM has to adjust challenges for a group of players with highly disparate abilities, and if the GM attempts to balance things by creating THIS challenge for THAT character, but THIS GREATER challenge for THAT OTHER character, a simple change in positioning, for example, can destroy the illusion of everyone contributing in an instant.

Okay, but Josh, about that powers vs gear thing-- isn’t it really important that a character can get that result without relying on equipment that can be broken or taken away? Hey, I’ll grant that this can be very different in different games. In an intrigue game, say, or an espionage one, the ability to be apparently unarmed but still able to strike down enemies might be a game-changer! But in my own experience, this is a *very* rare circumstance-- and it’s one that is often not even considered in game design in other ways. As a quick example, let’s look at D&D again. A given warlock can fire an Eldritch Blast for damage that is (very) roughly equivalent to what a skilled archer can inflict; this is broadly considered to be balanced, and if we compare warlocks with Hex to rangers with Hunter’s Mark, we see that, for better or worse, the designers had those in mind as (again very roughly) balanced choices. But the warlock doesn’t need a weapon at all-- they’re casting a spell, one that doesn’t even have a material component, while that ranger not only needs a weapon, they need a really big one like a longbow or heavy crossbow to match the warlock’s damage! But nobody really worries about that part of it, do they? Discussions of class balance cover things like access to high-level spells, attacks per round, damage per round, and so on. Characters being denied their gear is simply not a factor in most modern games; it’s just not an issue for most characters.

What does all of this mean? Well, it’s something to work on when a game designer creates something. Look at what the different costs actually are; decide if the balance issues are a serious problem. And think about how it all comes together. And playtest. Possibly a lot.

i’ve been thinking about fps weapon design and i’ve come to the conclusion:

regular guns are boring.

give me firearms that consume the user’s flesh as ammunition, grenades that turn nearby entities inside out, and satchel charges that explode into a mass of writhing tendrils.

i’m sick of games that think generic double barreled shotgun is the peak of weapon design

I was designing a little magic system for a game project I'm planning once I finish Brawlmentum and I had some trouble with telekinesis: how do I make it not overpowered? It's one of those powers where even as a kid watching superhero movies or reading comics I always had in the back of my mind things like "why don't they just telekinetically grab the guy's heart and rip it out of his chest" and whatnot. So to that my solution is "it's just not that precise and you kind of have to intuit a general area of what you want to grab; but then the other problem: how to limit the weight of what can be picked up in a way that doesn't seem entirely arbitrary? So I deliberated on that for a bit and came up with what I think is an easy solution and even kind of doesn't break physics as hard as usual telekinesis does: whatever force you apply to the object gets applied in reverse to you, spread over your whole body or parts of it so you can lift up a small rock no problem, it's just gonna feel a bit heavy on your arm - but if you try to lift up a boulder, it's either not gonna work at all or you'll collapse into a puddle. Which in turn also means that I have a good excuse to have incredibly jacked up wizards - the stronger you are physically, the more you can lift with magic, too

I know I'm restricting myself by being a ride or die rpg maker person but why must every game idea I have involve bending the engine in ways unintended originally and frankensteining plugins to make these ideas real

Here's a farmer's son visual novel spritesheet commission I did on fiverr

🚫do not repost/edit

I've started taking commissions on fiver. If you're interested please take a look

okay now this is SICK.

I worked too long on this to not post.

Illustration 2; Plate 4: Game Art

Had to draw our original characters in an existing game.

How To Make Your First Visual Novel

I'm yet again in a talkative mood, and as someone who has made/helped make over ten visual novels, I figured I would be Qualified™ to talk about it!

Step One: Pick Your Fighter... er... Engine!

Deciding the game engine you want to work in is the first step to having a game! Ren'Py is the most popular, free-to-use engine for visual novels, with tons of add-ons done by creators such as Devil Spiδεr and Feniks. Other commonly-used engines include Naninovel (an extension to Unity) and RPG Maker.

Step Two: Wait, What Goes In The Engine?

Whodathunk that for a visual novel, you need a story and visuals!

Clip Studio Paint has a series on making visual novel sprites, though any old art software works for making visual novel art. As for writing, I highly recommend Better Fountain, an extension to Visual Studio Code which enables to you to write in Fountain syntax. For music, I recommend Audiostock which gives access to hundreds of thousands of songs with their subscription service.

Step Three: But What Do I Do With All Of This?

Spoilers, your first visual novel... probably won't be your best. You have to make it to break the first timer's curse. Study your favorite visual novels, listen to other developers' processes, learn more about art/writing/music/etc., and remember that it doesn't have to be perfect. In a year of making visual novels, my work went from the left image, to the right:

You can do it too! Now go out there, and make visual novels!