11 game design goals I wanna hit with the next game

In case it's not obvious, my Design Talk series is more to teach myself things than anyone else. Lately I've been boiling down which of these concepts I want to adopt as core values when I come to design our next game. Bolting those on to what we already adhered to in Gunpoint and Heat Signature, it came to 11 design goals that feel like they fit together.

[@EgoEroTergum]

Side point, I still did LOVE the art direction in Heat Signature for the environments. I still remember some of those little narrative details today: The hardwood floors and greenspaces from Offworld Security. The Baroque patterns and inset glass-covered sand gardens of Sovreign. The teen room, punky, spray painted STAY OUT MOM! christmas-lights still up spaces of the Glitchers. And the blue and orange, industrial, Hardspacey vibe of the Foundry. Small, pixelated details - weightlifting benches, holding cell lines, potted plants - they gave the spaces so much character! Edit: I think, it's because they weren't *trying* to look like spaceships: they were trying to look like homes. Places that would comfort and remind the crew of their respective homes despite being unfathomably far from them, surrounded by nothingness.

[@jnewman12777]

I'm a board game designer and I really appreciate this because notes like this is like bouillon to a chef. You've boiled down all these thoughts into a dense little package for others to make use of. Here's a couple from me (for board game design): -The best way to play should be the funnest way to play -The first time someone plays the game is usually the only time -The less interesting a choice is mechanically, the more interesting that choice should be narratively -Give players equal access to the imbalanced. As long as players don’t know that they’ve lost before the game is over, let the points fly

[@muffininacup4060]

as a ttrpg player and designer, I disagree with "The less interesting a choice is mechanically, the more interesting that choice should be narratively" as this often will lead to using the more optimal, but less interesting options

[@climber5900]

@@muffininacup4060 I suspect they are talking about separate instances of choice, not the different options when you make a single choice. For example, the tokens in Monopoly could just be different colored circles, but by having the little metal tokens, everyone has a favorite they go for (Dog for me).

[@kevinscales]

@@muffininacup4060 "players will optimize the fun out of your game" is certainly true, however "interestingness" is not "effectiveness" so I think this rule is fine so long as the "effectiveness" of the options is balanced.

I think part of what makes "gut call design" fun is the perpetual sense that if only I were a _little_ better at understanding the game, I could indeed arrive at the "correct" play. It drives me to keep trying to improve. Combinatorial explosion is fun and Slice & Dice does it better than just about any other game.

[@HypoceeYT]

I was surprised and pleased to hear that tiny aside about you thinking the "gut call" zone is quite broad actually. I tend to think of designing for that sensation as magical/lucky and precise, comparable to your previous remarks on the impossibility of designing and communicating about difficulty. It seems obvious that your previous overloading of "natural numbers", as found in boardgames and Subset's stuff, is one component. Presenting gut calls to players might be a good future topic. While HeatSig developed and came out, I was amused by how much it distilled from your ancient "Agent Alpha" Hitman-in-space-with-factions pitch. Actually, Agent Alpha's amnesiac "upgrades as retcons" aspect is often remarked as a way to make chracters in TTRPGs, and is an explicit part of some FATE system RPGs such as the Atomic Robo game. It would seem to fit well and amusingly into a roguelike structure, and to provide clear hooks for inserting modular writing in all three of gamespace, flashbacks, and cutaways. You could even go Memento and have some upgrades or choices recontextualize or remove previous canon, or even in-game events such as damage taken or tools lost. That's probably two bridges too far, but it'd sure be novel. It would be amusingly precious to sum up the failure spectrum principle as "Always on *a* brink". Not that you did, but I take care not to underestimate the challenge Tom Jubert faced in writing for FTL. I think the exact same game with a flubbed tone would have failed to deliver the fantasy and wouldn't have exploded. He had to keep things nice and vague, both to avoid falling into any specific sci-fi property and to allow repetition not to grate. I also appreciate Subset and him committing to the constraint of consistently making you a Good Person, dutybound or pragmatic-under-duress at your lowest points. There are only a few sympathetic Rebels and other enemies scattered around, and only a few hints that the Federation might have aristocratic, weak, or corrupt elements - just enough to make it imperfect at worst. This is where I felt Chris Avellone fell down some in his work on FTL Advanced Edition, throwing in some very specific References and some zany or comedically cruel events. I'm glad he got to do what he so badly wanted, though, it was mostly fine, and then he absolutely slayed the expression of a range of characters and the tone through tiny doses in Into the Breach.

[@ScorpyX]

i love this video and explanation of development ideas! Thank you for your thoughts and experience.

[@abwuds7208]

This was SO intersting thank you!!!

[@diegofloor]

For quite some time now I started putting a lot more importance in setting, story, narrative. I noticed that when I stopped playing a decently made metroidvania because the plot and characters were not engaging enough. I have always been a gameplay first kind of gamer/dev, so I'm still processing this information. And it's also a little intimidating, because of all the hats a solo game developer needs to wear, I don't have a writer hat yet!

[@glasssoup7549]

Combination that explode in the mind. The card game Quantum Protocol comes to mind, hundreds of hours in, I still spot new combinations and sequences when playing.

[@RobVespa]

Well, if this is all for yourself, I (and others) still appreciate your sharing it.

[@RobVespa]

I'm glad Tactical Breach Wizards is still under development. I wasn't sure if development had stopped or not (and didn't receive/see a notice for the last few videos).

[@vladkostin7557]

I arrived at "gut calls" being an important focus in my design as well. I should write a doc like that for my current project, looks very useful, thanks for sharing 👍

[@Quimbyrbg]

I'm stoked to hear you are looking to return to a procedural game. I enjoyed GunPoint and the beta of B-Wiz, but Heat Signature is a goto comfort game for me. I will be playing HS long after I get bored with most of the other roguelike games because it's just so low investment to jump into, but infinitely playable.

[@Erin-beans]

Hi Tom. With you saying about wanting to do a roguelike next, do you ever worry about how the nature of them leads you to play until it overstays its welcome? I really like the format, but I find that when I come across one that I really like, I play it till I'm either bored of it or frustrated with it, and then that's kind of my lasting memory of it. My steam library is a graveyard of roguelikes that I've played and loved but whenever I think back on them, any fond memories are always tainted by "...and then I got bored and stopped" Like, as a contrast to a more traditional format where the game has like a defined end point, but it will hopefully leave you wanting more? Like for years now I've been craving a few quiet weeks where I can replay Nier Automata again because I need more. Even games like Recettear that I've played through the story of maybe 15-20 times (and, if im honest, it's probably run its course) it doesn't feel like I 'got bored and stopped' so much as I got to the end one time and never re-started? I don't mean this to sound like a dig at roguelikes, I love them, but it's just something that's been rolling around in my brain for a while as I find myself sometimes being unfairly harsh about them when talking with friends because getting bored is always the freshest memory I have of them.

[@superduper853]

i'm, just excted to see where the window sound effect shows up next

[@metrazol]

So... deck builder. Got it.

[@leifmessinger]

If you make a game entirely skill based, then you can avoid a doom state. Like in issac when you're on 1 health, you can still try to play it out. There was this great game I used to play where you could take down a whole spaceship with a wrench if you wanted, but then the dev decided to add enemies that could only be defeated with certain weapons.

[@Lemmingcave]

heat signature?

[@normalasylum]

You know going in what weapons you'll need. It doesn't take more or less skill to use those weapons instead of a wrench. It takes more flexibility in skills.

[@JetSimon]

Which game was it?

[@leifmessinger]

@@JetSimon Something like "thermal identifier"

[@EgoEroTergum]

Pre-mission briefing gives you good Intel, and you have a vast selection of missions. I think you failed to select a suitably wrenchable ship to infiltrate, rather than the dev failed in game design by adding more niche and difficult varieties of ship to infiltrate.