In our single-player city tycoon, every rival keeps a short list of grudges against the player. A grudge comes from one of five things: you bought one of their buildings, you sabotaged them, you beat them at an auction, you drove them into bankruptcy, or you won the city. Each one has a weight, a rival keeps three at most, and the rival who resents you the most is the one who comes back for revenge, aimed at the street where it started.

Right now all of this is on screen. Open a rival's card and you read their three grudges in plain words, with the day each one happened.

We keep going back and forth on that. Showing everything makes rivals readable and lets you plan around them, a bit like an opinion breakdown in a grand strategy game. Hiding it could make the revenge feel more personal, but it could also make it feel like random punishment.

Where would you draw the line? The full list, a vague mood ("Imed is furious with you"), or nothing until they strike?

As long as I can remember, I have been a fan of the RPG genre whether that be RPG in it’s purest form with complete control over your created character and the journey they go on such as Baldur’s Gate 3, Skyrim etc or comparatively linear approaches with character RPGs such as The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk or Kingdom Come Deliverance 1 & 2.

And there’s always that moment where you come up against a “wall”, not a literal wall mind you, but an obstacle that is just too hard to cross. Fromsoft’s titles like Dark souls or Elden Ring come to mind for their unforgiving gameplay where multiple attempts to beat a single boss or cross a single dungeon is pretty much the norm.

And as is human nature, I would often in frustration go online and search for a way out. A shortcut. This would first start with guides that help you to understand the mechanics of the fight, game and such to better let you navigate the game while still keeping it relatively challenging to keep you engaged. But sometimes…I would come across the OP builds. These were builds that were designed with one thing in mind: to make anything in your path no longer an obstacle. Builds that would make you so powerful that the once powerful wall that stood between you and progression crumbled into dust with little to no difficulty. And it felt amazing…until it didn’t.

Considering game design, there’s a balance that developers work hard to achieve. Keeping the game hard enough that the friction provides certain stimulants to the player and thus keeps them engaged. But on the other hand, they also want to keep the game from feeling unfair to the point that the average player would simply rage-quit or worse. But with the option of OP or overpowered builds, we’re left with a strange conundrum of sorts. You offer the player enough agency to plow through the game and allow them to feel truly powerful.
But the real question for me is: how long can you ride that high for? After a certain point, the game would simply become stale. Because once the friction, the wall is gone, the engagement is gone. The tension is gone. And despite the efforts of the devs to create an amazing experience for the players, most players I imagine wouldn’t feel compelled to continue outside of simply seeing where the narrative (if there is one) goes.

In short: once you’ve reached the peak of power, where else is there to go? I think this is the core reason why a lot of games struggle to remain engaging once you reach the end-game. Either the enemies, dungeons and such scale up to the point where most of them are just sponges for damage or get to the point where it just feels unfair unless you’ve spent hours upon hours farming and leveling up without actually playing the game.

Not an RPG example but I think an example of where this could be most clear is in the reason why Superman would make for a terrible videogame character and why Batman by comparison feels so engaging. There’s nothing stronger than Superman, so how do you create a game where he’s compelling to play. More often than not, you’d have to take away his OP-ness. Or you’d have to bring everyone else up in powerscaling (The Injustice Games come to mind).

So what would be the actual solution?

Seriously. Even some games that let you rebind keys don't let you rebind a controller.

I've tried multiple times to get into Witcher 3 but I always end up quitting after awhile because the controls are horrendous. It's so counterintuitive that the game becomes frustrating and it drains all the fun out of the experience.

I thought this was just a old game thing where modern game design should obviously let everyone rebind, but no...
This year I bought Crimson Desert, discovered that jumping is Square instead of Cross, tried to rebind it and found out I wasn't allowed to, and then promptly refunded the game. Now I redownloaded Witcher 3 because I thought maybe they would be sensible enough to let me rebind, but nope! Jumping is still Circle instead of Cross. Why is it always games that are objectively wrong (joke) about what button is for jumping, that doesn't let you rebind the controller?

I don't know if I'm alone in this but it is such a dealbreaker for me. No rebinding = instant refund.

I know which buttons intuitively does what for me and want to rebind them. No way am I gonna bother switching between games and have jump or attack or crouch be different buttons in every game.

How is it not just basic common sense game design to let players rebind their controllers?

I'm working on a first person diving sim / survival horror game set in an archipelago, and while brainstorming marine-themed hazards, I realised I didn't know which of those hazards should be "regular" hazards that must simply be overcome through skill alone; and which ones should be "gates" that require "keys" for the player to access them in the first place.

A Gate is a type of barrier or obstacle in the game that requires a certain ability to bypass. A reinforced door that can only be broken by explosives, a flooded passageway that you need a diving suit to make it through, or a steep chasm that you need the ability to fly to get across, are all examples of gates.

This is taken from the Metroidvania genre, as I want to borrow the concept of requiring new tools to access new areas and open-up the world little by little.

So for example, beds of spikes with platforms over them would be a regular hazard for the player, while the same challenge with more spaced platforms that require a double-jump ability would thus be a gated hazard instead. There's also traps, that I would define as hazards that are concealed and triggered by player actions instead of being passive and in plain sight : strange holes on the ground that burst with spikes when the player walk on them would be an example. Those would certainly be classified as simple hazards in my game, like sea-dumped ammunition, clamping shells, lobster pots, ghost fishing lines ... etc. but I digress.

Examples of obstacles I brainstormed and need to sort :

• Flooded / underwater area (everything outside of islands) --> Diving suit
• Sea between islands (everything outside of islands) --> Boat
• Extreme cold (polar region) --> Polar suit
• Sea ice (polar region) --> Ice-breaker
• Pressure (abyssal region) --> Deep diving suit / adaptations + Deep diving sub
• Extreme heat and toxicity (hydrothermal vents, abyssal region)
• Turbidity (shallow coastal areas)
• Darkness (during night, shaded slopes, underwater caves, abyssal region)
• Mist / Fog (oceanic region, cliffs)
• Tide (intertidal coastal areas)
• Rocky reefs (coastal areas)
• Sharp oyster reefs, slippy algal reefs (coastal areas)
• Currents (coastal areas, oceanic region)
• Waterfalls (inner water bodies)
• Waves (coastal areas, oceanic region)
• Pollution discharge (coastal areas)
• Floating Sargassum beds (oceanic region)
• Quicksand/mud (coastal areas)

While I intuitively feel like the first five should be gate-hazards, and the player should discover the cited counter-measures to resist / overcome these conditions and thus access the regions they guard, I don't know what to do with the rest of the hazards. Should they be simple hazards or gate-hazards? How do you decide?

(By the way, if you have additional ideas for marine-themed hazards, traps and obstacles, I'm all ears.)

Hey all, I've been working on a top down open world game that focuses on exploration and building paths (think something like a 2D Death Stranding). The idea is you start in a central base/city and need to navigate obstacles to find 4 other cities.

My original thought was to procedurally distribute navigation hazards, since I'm trying to bring a more "arcadey" feel to the gameplay, however I'm having a hard time making it feel compelling. In playtesting with myself, I find it quite boring to go out and explore since it's fairly easy to avoid obstacles, and there aren't any moments of interesting challenge.

This is making me think I should hand-design the world, but I'm slightly overwhelmed by the scope of it. So I'm wondering has anyone out there dealt with a similar decision? Or any tips for making procedural worlds more engaging? Or manual world design more manageable?

I'm working on a strategy/management game about gladiator rats, and I've been questioning one of my earliest art direction decisions.

The rats are deliberately cute. Big eyes, expressive faces, tiny armor made from household junk. I wanted players to get attached to them, because the world they live in is anything but cute.

They get injured, grow old, form friendships and rivalries, and can die permanently. The story gets pretty dark too.

My thinking was that losing a cute little rat you've spent hours training and taking care of would hurt much more than losing some generic fantasy warrior.

But recently I've been wondering whether that contrast might actually work against the game.

Maybe people who enjoy cute animal games expect something relaxing, while people who enjoy complex, unforgiving strategy games see the cute rats and assume it's a casual game ...

Did I mess up?

I'm the solo dev of Heistfest, a black-and-white arcade getaway game where you drive through cities while police, choppers and eventually tanks pile on.

I'm going back and forth on what happens when you break line of sight. Two options:

1. Instant reset: duck behind a block or into a tunnel and the heat drops quickly. It feels great and rewards clever driving, but it can make the chase feel toothless.
2. Last known position: units converge on where they last saw you and fan out, so you have to keep moving and actually leave the area. It's more tense, but it can feel unfair if you can't tell where they're searching.

Which one makes for a better chase to you? Are there games that nailed the middle ground? I'd love to hear examples.

(Store page, if you're curious: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1451220/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=oct21-anniversary&utm_content=ext-gamedesign-1021)

Like everyone, I have been day dreaming about making a game. One of my favourite games as a kid was Civilization 3, which I felt was peak Sid Meier as it was simple and responsive. Future games improved a bunch of the mechanics, but I never really enjoyed the insane length of a game, nor the feeling that I'd "won" by being so far up the tech tree I'm fielding tanks against cavalry and it's still 300 turns before I can officially win the game.

Here's some of the design concepts I think would be critical:

• Game length is 2-3 hours so players don't get bored.
• Victory should be more "Catan-esque" with points for different milestones so players have balance competing priorities (i.e. maybe you get a point for conquering the most enemy cities, and a point for having the most population, and a point for finding The Golden Fleece etc. and you need 7 points to win the game)

Some that I'm not so sure on:

• How many units per tile? Civ 3's infinite stack became super annoying in large-scale wars. Civ 5's one-per turn is better IMO, but I'm wondering if some version of Civ 3's 1-3 unit stacks might be a good mid-point? E.g. you could combine an archer with a spearman, with a swordsman for a flexible squad, or triple down on catapults to devastate cities but you'll have to rely on other stacks to protect your artillery.
• Asymmetric or symmetric teams? Is it better to go "StarCraft"-style and make three really different leader options, or Civ-style and make them the same with just a couple of unique bonuses for style?
• PvP or PvE? I've actually never played this style of game against people, but multiplayer games are inherently more viral, so I wonder if that would be something to build for?

I'm thinking of a high fantasy setting as well. I just like the vibe of that world, and the idea of building a happy elf town.

This isn't my area of expertise so please do tell me if it's a stupid daydream or if this literally already exists?

Im working on a passion project and creating my own idle game (seems like these are a dime a dozen nowadays) and im wondering what people actually look for in an idle game. Its easy for me to get tunnel vision on my own game without getting some opinions.

For me I like having a wide range of activities, think idleonMMO but slowly unlock them, I guess the progression and complexity is what I enjoy. But also having viable strategies interests me so there is no fixed or optimal path for every player. I think graphics as well are a big part of it and fitting a theme can make the game feel polished and just fun to play.

But gaming in general, i always liked mmos where my time was valued and any gear i was wearing could be shown off and people would know i had killed X boss or done a certain task etc, its less common nowadays with transmog or cash shop cosmetics though. I specifically love osrs where i can take a break and come back and all my gear is relevant and i pretty much pick up from where i started, some games like the witcher3 i remember taking a break and having to relearn everything, still an amazing game regardless.

Curious if there are any features from a specific game that standout, or just a more general trait in a game that people look for.

This may sound very stupid but I was just thinking how most games nowadays are just a "what if xxxx" question of an existing game.

So that got me curious what are some variations of existing games you guys could think of that completely changes the core of that game

I'm currently in my senior year of undergrad as a graphic design major and for my thesis i'm trying to make a board game that would allow students and parents learn more about the different jobs/professions in Agriculture besides farming. I really want to diversify the sector

Do you guys, by any chance, know any tabletop games I could refer to? Thank you so much!!

I’m developing Gnome Nook, a cozy organizing game where you collect scattered gnomes and return them to their matching shelves.

I’d appreciate feedback on how clearly the matching mechanic comes across in the gameplay footage. Can you tell what makes a shelf the correct destination for a particular gnome?

Here’s the gameplay trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x75oaLakx4

The Steam page has more screenshots and information about the game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5421590/Gnome_Nook/

Thanks for any feedback.

So, in the past 7 days I have been prototyping this game idea using Claude Opus 5.5. An idea I have wanted to make since May 2020. I have made multiple posts about this idea over the years and I made a post over on r/aigamedev summarizing the history behind the idea which also links to the prototype I made. You can find the post here.

In short the original idea is the player fights others using abilities they can "create" themselves. When I tried it out it didn't feel right because the idea is inspired by anime/manga like hunter x hunter and Jojo's bizarre adventures. In those anime the battles are usually settled by wit using abilities the characters can use. I tried my ability creation idea but I don't think it was fun to play so I settled on the player can create their own ability kit instead using abilities made by the creator of the game.

Any ways something I learnt while designing this prototype is two things, which is probably obvious to some or most of you but I felt like discussing what I had learnt with others.

1. When designing the game it is a lot easier to create a strategy first and then create abilities that feed into the strategy. Doing what I did which was create a bunch of abilities I thought were cool is much more difficult when designing the game if the abilities don't have a strategy surrounding it. What I did was create a bunch of abilities I thought were cool and had some hypothetical use case. I know this point is probably obvious to some or most of you, but I thought because I wanted to give the player as much freedom as possible, it didn't matter what the abilities use case was since that would be up to the player. To me play testing the game it wasn't very fun to play and much more difficult to design.

2. I have made a post on r/gamedesign before a post you can find here. A common criticism I got was players will "optimize the fun out of the game", instead of tinkering with the abilities themselves or playing what they think is fun. So, to try and fix the problem I did two things.

The first thing is the arena components are semi-random there are weather events, buffs that can be picked up and a usable environment. Meaning that either side don't know what advantages and disadvantages they will get in the game.

The second thing is what I call the "Pokemon" solution, even if Pokemon wasn't the first game to do this, but I got it from there. Due to the nature of damage types in Pokemon you can't really create a team that beats all other teams. I did a similar thing where there are counter strategies or strategies where certain strategies will struggle. So, a "perfect" strategy wouldn't hopefully be a thing, because you don't know what you will be up against.

Final thing I will say is, I really liked this idea but after playing it I think the idea is good but not great. I am obviously open to questions and criticism.

Imagine two fighters with similar basic damage and reach. One earns a charge by pressuring an opponent’s guard. The other earns it by baiting a whiff and punishing the recovery. Both can spend that charge to cancel recovery into a short step.

The goal is different decisions, not just different numbers. But if that cancel is too valuable, the “preferred playstyle” could become a compulsory routine.

The corner seems like a useful test: would the pressure fighter ever choose to give up close range? Would the baiting fighter sometimes hold ground rather than retreat? If not, the resource might be narrowing their options too much.

Would you differentiate how they spend the charge instead? What trade-off would make abandoning their preferred plan a sensible choice rather than a punishment?