Hello,
Depending on where you live, you might now be quarantined (or might soon be) because of the COVID-19 virus.
Which means you might be stuck with a lot of free time and nowhere to go.
If you’ve been interested in game dev for a while but haven’t really delved into it – why not now?
It’s a fun and productive use of your time, you’ll learn a bunch of new skills and it’ll help keep you mentally sane.
Anyway, here are this week’s ideas!
3 Gamedev Ideas
I.
If you want to make your game feel fair to the player, you have to make it technically unfair.
The games that feel good to play implement a lot of different technics that give leeway to the player. (see this twitter thread from Matt Thorson, creator of Celeste)
Allow them to jump out of a platform even if they’ve already started falling from it.
Push them up a tiny bit if they tried to dash somewhere but bumped their feet on the wall.
Try to understand what the player wants to do and help them out.
If you don’t do it, your game will feel frustrating – even though it’ll technically be fair.
II.
At some point during development, your game will look like it’s done.
The main systems will be in place. The graphics will look almost finalized.
That’s when you’ll think you’re 90% done – when you’re actually only halfway there.
Polishing a game takes atleast as much time as making it in the first place.
III.
If you’re making a roguelite, try to find efficient ways to incentivize the player to replay the same content over and over.
You don’t necessarily need to create thousands of different enemies and items.
In Dicey Dungeons, you replay the same levels with different characters.
They each have one unique mechanic and 2 to 3 different starting cards that change how you apprehend enemies. It’s just enough to keep it fresh.
In Slay the Spire, the game makes you replay the same levels 20 times for each character through the use of Ascensions.
Everytime, one thing becomes harder. “More elites”. “Start the run damaged.”
As the dev, you just have to tweak some numbers. But it gives your players a reason to start a new run.
Until next week,
Thomas Gervraud,
Developer of Space Gladiators: Escaping Tartarus