Tom used to be a lawyer. Now he's a game designer. The two have more in common than you think.
Apologies for the late update! It’s been a week of coding, testing, and now more coding in response to the testing. đ
You’ll have to forgive me for needing to sleep, but I leave you with a shot of placeholder art:
Bonus points if you can tell how this boss fight works. đ
If you’re in New York City, this Friday is No Quarter, an annual event showcasing indie games that play well for large groups. To date I’ve only had the opportunity to play Stephen Lawrence Clark’s work, and it’s amazing; I’ve no doubt that the other three games to be featured will be spectacular as well.
No Quarter starts at 7:00 p.m., and is entirely free. Drop by if you can!
An odd concept, much in need of tuning but with the hint of a useful idea.
Players can choose from either of two weapons. Once pathfinds sensibly to the opponent. The other uses a random heuristic; it will get to the opponent eventually, but using a likely sub-optimal route that covers a lot more ground. Do you want to go for the throat, or control space?
Some advice I had occasion to give to first-year MFAs today, but that I’m confident is right for everyone: if you’re a digital designer, learn and use some kind of version control. Use it for everything. That includes your prototypes, your quick projects, everything, without exception. It substantially improves your ability to recover from failed experiments (and, thus, your comfort with necessary experimentation) even if you never have to recover from a drastic loss.
Computers do all sorts of great things. Unfortunately, taking advantage of a computer’s unique capabilities–pathfinding, generating content mathematically, effortless line-of-sight evaluations, etc.–can involve getting through substantial technical barriers. If you’re being kept from your design goals by one of those walls, I strongly recommend taking a look at Red Blob Games.
Red Blob Games does two things that are very, very useful in providing code help. First, it has lots of examples. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it explains clearly how things work. The examples are all the more useful as a result, and it’s (relatively) easy to envision the changes needed to build the implementation you need for your particular project.
Some ideas hinge on a technical thing that must work. If your technical thing is on Red Blob Games’ pages, that’s a big head start. Give them a look.
When you’re trying to make an approachable game, even a little bit of theming works wonders.
Sometimes you have a great-looking prototype that sells itself.
Sometimes . . . you’ve got this.
This wasn’t required for the minimum viable product. If your game is about playing blackjack for your life against otherworldly forces, though, the card backs are an opportunity to sell the narrative.
The Law of Game Design 