Tierlisting the BEST FEATURES for your game

[@JOZUWE]

my next game will be a game where you stand on a train that is driving around a lake, and you are fishing this lake, while standing on the train

[@kodaxmax]

You should add modding support and make it an MMO

[@InJJWeTrustOfficial]

@@kodaxmax Open World MMO * haha

[@petpumpkin]

you joke but that actually sounds kinda cool lol

[@R4psu]

Don't forget to add customizable controls, localization to Dutch and Chinese + hotas-support!

[@kodaxmax]

@@petpumpkin It's a trap!

[@baddragonite]

Fun fact: Former Blizzard director on Vanilla Wow Mark Kern has said he puts fishing in literally every single game he makes- just because his wife loves to fish in games

[@Lone_Wolf_91]

O wow

[@mielipuolisiili7240]

Unexpectedly wholesome

100%

[@kodaxmax]

I know trains were a joke. But "Gimmicks" would have made a good category. Gimmicks like adding train can litterally take your game from a generic indie horror to a cult classic, as with the game you mentioned. Adding the grappling hook to just cause 2 took it from a generic action shooter, to a beloved classic sandbox series. It's an easy way to get your game to stand out and can end up being the games entire identity, as with the portal series being an extreme example.

[@avinsxd]

What do you mean trains were a joke? It was completely serious and 100% facts. No matter the genre, if the game has trains it instantly goes up the list of games I'm playing

[@DeltaNovum]

It's not related to what you just said, but I found it important to share, that having controller support will make sure your game is playable by a lot of gamers with disabilities! There are many devices that can enable people with disabilities to play games. And they often use a controller input to rebind their controls. So if you think it's important to include that group of gamers, and you have the time and finances to actually implement controller support, please do so.

[@jakslayersyth]

It's important to keep in mind that things like rebindable controls and gamepad access is about accessability not just like a comfort thing.

[@BLET_55artem55]

It's a *necessity* and I don't want to hear anything else

[@Atlessa]

@@BLET_55artem55 I wish that it was a standard feature of all popular engines, including but not limited to Unity, Unreal, Godot and many more. (In fact it probably is, but what do I know.)

[@potato9832]

Popular game engines support remapping. The issue is whether devs use the API or ignore it and go to direct keyboard and mouse input. Also providing a user interface can take time. I think offering a text file for remapping is a simple compromise.

[@doghous3]

i'm pretty sure a number of years ago, it was legislated (or to that effect), that if you have the resources you must provide a good level of accessibilities in your games. which is why all AAA games provide such.

[@BLET_55artem55]

@@doghous3 that and accessibility settings help you get better reputation which means more money

[@jean-michelgilbert8136]

About testing networking with multiple instances, I got news for you guys. This is actually done at big studios. I worked at Ubisoft and at Larian and we totally debugged multiplayer issues with two instances of the game running. One of the game instances always ran at a poopish fps but it was not used for debugging latency, just for debugging other stuff that could happen in MP and, believe me, a lot can happen that doesn't happen in single player mode. For instance, on Divinity Original Sin 2, we had VFX issues that were exclusive to MP mode due to sync issues. And, Might & Magic : Duel of Champions at Ubi just couldn't be debugged without running two instances as it was a free-to-play trading

[@jean-michelgilbert8136]

card game. Replying to myself to finish the post because stupid big fingers on phone did an auto-send.

[@Lacotemale]

Yeah, I do this with my game. Two instances on the same machine. I still need to do some latency testing though.

[@MrFox5113]

This is the correct answer 👏

[@TwoStarGames]

Can confirm, trains are an S tier feature

[@PFVictor]

I love trains and I completely agree! All of my great games have trains/train levels, especially the games in the early 2000s where they show trains in the early stages on the game. Examples: Max Payne, Half Life - start on a train. Mafia - main character rides a train and there are trains in the city. Commandos - several train levels. Factorio trains - amzaing.

[@Zbracadabra]

As a left-handed, rebinding can be a huge dealbreaker for some games, especially shooters where you need to access quickly a lot of keys. We don’t have access to the same keys because our thumb is on the left side of the keyboard

[@samamies88]

Great list as always. If you ever do a sequel or remake of this then maybe some of these things could be added: - minimap (or actually a map overall) - color blind options - easter eggs/secrets (altho maybe this is kinda too similar with achievements as it is something extra players can do if they want to) - DLC/expansions - (animated or video) cutscenes - voice acted dialogue - fast travel - customization (main character, cursor, pet, base/house/camp, font, text box color & shapes... etc) - autosave/checkpoints (i feel like manual save is maybe too obvious for a tier list like this but autosaves and/or checkpoints shouldn't be overlooked)

[@mandisaw]

Autosave & accessibility settings (e.g. colorblindness, high-contrast, font-size) are honestly bare-minimum. I think on console they may actually be required for cert. The others are more genre-specific, but I would like them to break out character-customization & pets 🐕

[@635574]

Triple A devs struggle to find what colorblind otpions should do. I have some understanding of vision science and i guess shifting the icon color palette between red-gree and blue-yellow contrast when it comes to icons or health/dmg colors should work. Also if some of the levels are mostly one color that channel could be remappped to metge with another channel.

[@635574]

​@@mandisawi think many of them depend on how much you spend on the planning phase and how many instances you want. but there is no universal way tl handle saving, some games save everything and other need you to win or manual save. And of course item purcheses better save instantly.

[@mandisaw]

@@635574 It's actually quite easy to check your designs for colorblind-safety. Photoshop and most color-palatte mgmt software have preset filters built in for each colorblindness-type, UI design software like Figma & Adobe XD have 3rd-party plugins you can use, and you can build or buy simple filters to check in-engine. Accessibility websites provide guidance on all this stuff - we've had the info & tooling for a decade+ at this point, games is just lagging as an industry 😣

[@mandisaw]

@@635574 Autosave is something that every commercial game is doing by default. You have to implement it in order to test the game, run analytics, etc. The only design-question is how & whether you expose that functionality to the player.

[@QuangNguyen-lf4lu]

For me personally, rebind key is S tier, nearly must have in every game. I'm familiar with some keybind setup so I always want to check key rebinding to change around. Even if after that I use game default key binding, that's my choice, and it makes me feel comfortable when playing. For example, in 2D platformer, thanks to Megaman X4, I'm familiar with setting Z:Dash, X:Jump, C:Attack. So in other games, like Hollow Knight, I need to rebind to that setting in order to perform the best I can. In FPS/TPS, except WASD to move and R to reload, other keys Q,E,Tab,1,2,3,... I usually switch them to see what fit me the most. Even in some strategy game, the key binding might be really annoyed, especially when they dont have option to rebind.

[@vampirematt101]

A thing to add about controller support, it's not just controller. It's basically accessibility support. Many disabled gamers out there with their own controller setups which is what allows them to game at all

[@AramoniumGames]

Best he mentions trains again in this video, as they turn up in all the other scope creep vids.

[@hamzahgamedev]

Listening about Trains while implementing a fishing system in my game haha, you guys are awesome. You have been consistently providing so much value to the game dev community. Wish you all the best! 💛

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Trains are very useful when implemented well. Much like IRL Trains. You can load up the Cargo with any type of Shipment for your game. Be it complex or simple. And it helps with World Building in relation to the "show and don't tell" rule. For hyper abstract games. Trains are phenomenal in telling stories without making the player feel lost in the narrative. As the Train becomes your HUB World and the acts as the pages within Chapters. Then, on a grand scale. The Open World can set up Train Stations as it marks Historical Areas for the player to explore. Or, that if curiosity is given. The player can stop the train mid path to investigate unknown areas. The difference between Trains and Walking, is that you are never far away from your HUB. While Walking forces a specific kind of travel or becomes a Walking Simulator that wastes the player's time investment.

[@tymondabrowski12]

I hope you keep your word, because now I'm going to add trains to my... chess puzzle game. Gonna be back for that free marketing in ~four months from now.

[@Fox13440]

7:09 Redindable controls are very important for the countries that don't have the same keyboard layout. Bc otherwise you need to add a new language to your keyboard and switch to it just to play a game. The casual player will probably refound rather than searching how to install another layout

[@zaftnotameni]

(good) engines have support for assigning physical locations to keys, which automatically solves this without even needing to rebind

[@Fox13440]

@@zaftnotameni In unreal it is keys not physical so you can't. Same for unity i guess bc i had a game in unity that had this problem

[@zaftnotameni]

@@Fox13440 i'm sure there are plenty of store assets to fix that for those, no? godot has built-in

[@Fox13440]

@@zaftnotameni i don't know but yes if you don't do key re bindings at least put the bindings as physical. In unreal it is easy to do key re bindings once you understand how it works

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@zaftnotameni True... The best Macros I've used for Controller Support on PC, physically Key Bind the Controller Buttons onto the keys on the keyboard. Plus extra things like Hold Input Extensions & Layouts. Even Steam Virtual Controller in the Steam Virtual Mode does this for all games on Steam. It helps with some Mobile Games on Steam.

[@RealCoachMustafa]

Spoiler alert: All of it is scope creep.

[@ringo2715]

Optimal scope is zero. Like war games, the best move is not to play

[@RealCoachMustafa]

@@ringo2715 You're playing 4D chess will everyone else is playing connect 4

[@ultimaxkom8728]

@@ringo2715 Weakest game theorist:

[@kodaxmax]

Flappy bird knew what it was doing.

[@Gveg]

@@RealCoachMustafamy Connect 4 game had better have online multiplayer, branching storylines, mod support, and TRAINS!

[@thelawrence1970]

your video unironically gave me an idea on how to add trains as the level-change mechanic for my first game. Thanks guys!!

[@themore-you-know]

CONTEXT: - should be noted that the Tier-Ranking is affected by the game engine used, as per difficulty of completing the feature. - Godot, for instance, makes it VERY EASY to create key rebindings and controller support. And, by virtue of trying out what works with the controller + key rebinding, it opens up your mind on what is and should be possible in the envisioned game. By contrast, online multiplayer is likely much harder on Godot, than on Unity/Unreal. - For this reason: some features are S+ tier if easy to plug-and-play, but C-tier if their development is hard as a result of the framework used.

[@azumashinobi1559]

If anyone makes a game in godot and doesn't include controller support... I will find you lmao

[@themore-you-know]

@@azumashinobi1559, I think by that point, it's almost an achievement and a bold artistic choice, haha

[@TheLebonnobel]

@@azumashinobi1559 I want to make a game with controller support but no keyboard support. For pc

[@loopzys]

blud@@TheLebonnobel

[@AryanshMalviya]

This is why it's so strange to find games proudly made in Godot but that don't have rebindable controls. I think Brotato used to be like that and it would be frustrating.

[@AurelUrban]

To be honest, the trains in Dorfromantik make me so happy tat they easily bring up my enjoyment of the game by 100%

[@Iamjake1000]

I was actually thinking of a branching story based on relationship meters. Picking something good or bad will either add or subtract a float. During dialouge if a float is greater than some number you get that narrative. As long as you make the characters not entireoy rely on other dialogue or make it generic enough that it works for either you can whip out a whole new story quickly.. This works only for certain games though where every character isnt fully connected.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

From a player side... You have to make the Dialogue Choices very clear and more clear if those choices actually affect the game. The player doesn't know what you mean by the Dialogue Choices. So they can end up choosing what they thought is the correct choice but only to not be satisfied when the Character pulls a 180 on the Dialogue Choices. This is a major problem with Dialogue Choice Games that most of the important choices and affinity based choices are mixed with other choices that do nothing in the game beyond adding Lore etc. Case in point... "Oh, you don't get to see that Quest because you missed a dialogue option or failed to Successfully Roll on it.", during an 80/20 Dialogue Rule. (80% being Info Dialogue while 20% being Game Changing Dialogue.)

[@vody929]

Translations are good if you can afford it, because of the gaming market in Asia if you need to pick, its worth translating them, you open your game to a huge market

[@jonasvejlin6669]

Hi I am gamer from Denmark. You talked about location in Danish so I would like to give you my perspective. Unless you are making games for kids in Denmark then I would say that you should not bother with location. Most gamers here prefer to play games in English since past location in Danish has been so bad that most of us dont even bother to change from English to Danish.

[@sealiteral432]

If the people making the game happen to speak the language, I guess translating it themselves might make sense, but yeah, I've seen plenty of bad translations. Things like using the same word for "level" (environment/track) and "level" (of difficulty). I guess some developers try to add localisation on the cheap but don't do it properly and then people end up preferring to play in English where they expect a higher quality.

[@DeadStawker]

​@@sealiteral432What would be your guess on the % of English-speaking PC gamers in Denmark?

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@sealiteral432 America, for me... Localizing in English is the only real option if I was an Indie Game Dev. Localizing for other language's, both Sub and Dub, is something I have to drop. Because of expensive, unfortunately. If I could... Mexico Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, languages in both the Middle East and in Europe is where I would begin if I had the expenses to do so.

[@sealiteral432]

​@@DeadStawker Depending on the type of game I'd probably guess about 92%. I'm assuming people between12 and 40 would be better at English than people outside that age range, generally being able to play most games, but I'm aware of people in their 20s who avoid English, all of which have disabilities such as dyslexia which probably had some impact on them not getting as good at English as most people. (I guess education might be a bit too optimised, so the gap between those who learn most and those who learn least seems bigger here than in Spain where I grew up.) Also, English is sorta similar to Danish, which might explain why an average speaker of Danish seems better at English than an average speaker of Spanish. By the way, I asked some people how they'd say "quicksave" in Danish, and they didn't know a Danish word for it but they did know what the English word meant. (Not to mention that when I typed "quicksave in Danish" into Google, it was slightly too "smart" and gave me a phrase that meant "quick rescue".

[@itzW3LF]

That's probably because most people in Northern Europe can speak fluent English so it doesn't bother them. Here in Italy, for example, there are still a lot of people complaining every time a new game is announced without Italian localisation or dubbing.

[@dust1315]

Hi. I just watched your video, and now going to build my own full-feature dnd game with trains.

[@635574]

Dungeons and Derailments😂

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@635574 Delirium and Debauchery: "I love Trains" 3rd Edition There's even a paint able Mini of the Train.

[@retro5533]

I can’t find a place for trains in my game as it takes place like.. 3000BCE. Would Wagon convoys do? Fishing is going to be a thing for sure

[@bitemegames]

Time traveling trains! -M

[@HRCA1605]

At first I found it funny how you added "TRAINS" category, but then I realized that in the game I'm currently working on, I plan to add a level that has a train (sort of) in it because I really wanted to have a train in it and yeah, I do like when a game does have a train of any kind 😅

[@Seancstudiogames]

Okay trains are on the implement list . My game is a twin stick shooter. How do I do this @marnix ?

[@bitemegames]

1) Make train main character 2) Put gun on train 3) ... 4) Profit -M

[@Seancstudiogames]

🤣@@bitemegames

[@kodaxmax]

classic shooters were metaphorically on rails. might as well just visualize it.

[@YangyChaddyDad]

Make one character passively lay tracks and you can use abilities or gadgets or something in train form Or something

[@blacklys]

That proud smile after the game's journalist difficulty mode joke 😂 p.s. I agree that trains are S tier.

[@lildgamedev6885]

Yay more tier lists, love these videos!

[@ChrisTutorialsYT]

Solid discussion especially the part about multiplayer. Server based multiplayer was an obvious no but it does make me question even at what point self hosted peer to peer multiplayer becomes worth it in titles similar to Stardew Valley for instance. It worked for that game (and similar ones in the genre) but is it worth it if your game scope and expected sales are much lower? Other titles in say farming sim genre like Harvest Moon were just fine without it (albeit the classics are rather dated at this point).

[@ikkeheltvanlig]

For real though, there's a takeaway about the trains thing. Trains are very evocative, much in the same way fishing is. A train evokes freedom, exploration, new horizons, being transported to the unknown. Fishing evokes peace, contact with nature, the sound of birds and streams. Other examples of symbolic visuals are sunsets, god-rays, floating dust particles, seagulls, smoke/steam etc. It's valuable to understand your game's scenery and ambience and how such imagery can add to it. A-tier for sure. Related to this, is a thorough soundscape, but this is S-tier. Take the time to appreciate how your game world sounds, not just if the music is banging or the punch sound is punchy, but how does the world sound with music off and nothing happening? Does it evoke the right feelings for that scene? S-tier without a doubt

[@rage_2000]

Localization is S tier Unless you’re a native English speaker

[@HoucKSF]

Rebinding your keys should be a must/required in any game going to be sold. Accessibility features can make or break many people's ability to play your game. I'd highly recommend reading the game accessibility guidelines for any developer and their basic list covers easy-to-implement and wide-reaching things to add.

[@satibel]

one of the interesting things I noticed in translation is that french buttons aren't capitalized while english is for example "Save As" in english will be "Enregistrer sous" in french, where only the first letter is capitalized.

[@YangyChaddyDad]

I agree, trains are peak content in all forms

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Ironically true. As Trains teaches everything you need to have when making 90% of Video Game Genres. The other 10% are games like Chess and Majong etc. where, much like Poker, the game is set in stone. Not as malleable.

[@oliver_twistor]

For disabled gamers, rebindable input (and controller support) is extremely important. There are some games I simply cannot play because I can't rebind input. Also, by having rebindable input in mind at the design phase, one makes sure that they think in actions rather than specific keys. The added benefit to that is that if one decides later on to add controller support or any other mode of input (microphone, steering wheel, vibration, air flow or whatever esoteric mode one can come up with), the groundwork is already done. In general, accessibility is easier and cheaper to implement the earlier in development one does it.

[@_angstlust_]

With re-mapping keys I always think about the people who are left-handed

[@akarnokd]

With Unity/Mono, modders can likely do it via modding frameworks on their own. Consequently, modding can help with adding more language translations to some extent. Two hurdles are private datatypes and right-to-left languages though.

[@rickrischter9631]

Thanks guys, your videos are incredible. I'm a solo app developer in part time from about a year and have been learning a lot from you. I'm working with Android apps instead of games, but many things you discuss still apply. About the localization, I already consider more or less the same problems you discussed. I agree that google translate is usually a bad translation because it losts context. But did you guys tried GPT4 mass translation? Something like, you prompt GPT4 with something like: I have strings for a game in english, the game is like that, the mood is like that, etc. Here are the strings: .... Give me the strings translated in Spanish. I did it and GPT is able to keep format, JSON formats etc, keep the SCV tye justing adding a column, etc. GPT translator is much superior than google translator ones and it can keep the programming sintax. You can feed it at least 100 words at time easily, probably something like 1000. Adding more at once it is easier for GPT to understand context. In a different direction, can someone recommend to me a channel focused in solo dev/small team dev with the same approach as ''BiteMe Games"?

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Chat GPT 4 (later 5) is good but for English only. Trying to convey Languages properly, requires knowledge of the language being used. To which, Chat GPT 4 cannot do. This is why Japanese and English Localisation is a massive hit or miss for the more complex dialogues.

[@crtglowgames]

Revisiting this one again as it's gold. You guys dropping Dutch made me chuckle - I get tired writing my street name: 19 letters alloneword... In Japanese it'd be four characters. In English the same length but at least with some spacing to allow linebreaks.

[@CliveAtFive]

Some of these might be better represented on a scale of "effort vs impact" instead of a tier list. Like "difficulty" for example: low effort, medium-high impact. That can help small devs pick and choose what challenges to take on.

[@dark_elf_wizard]

16:00 the tutorial is always the best part of a game, even if it is just text in a photo. how else do you know the controls of a game. (in some games i have died because the death key was not in the tutorial and someone was joking around.)

[@dobrx6199]

I don't know if I'd call it the best part of the game but they are still super important lol

[@dark_elf_wizard]

i always play game early to mid, so for me it's 50% of the fun.@@dobrx6199

[@635574]

We need to distinguish basic controls form more advanced tutorials, and not every game is complex enough yo need explanations beyond that

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@dobrx6199 Teaching players how to use the Controller is important for your games. Especially in high end mechanical skill games. Otherwise, skipping the tutorial is a detriment... ... ... My TTRPGs, as a hoby, is like this. A proper introduction is needed.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@635574 For simple games... True. But my games (as a hobby) are always the top in the line of both mechanical skill, game sense, and stat allocations. Although... I mainly give out tutorials when it's relevant. So the 1st Tutorial is rather simple... "Movement, Block, and Attack". Advanced Tutorials show up later on.

[@satibel]

for testing network latency there's a bunch of tools, one of the easiest is WANem (though you can also relatively easily do similar stuff with firewalls), setup a small linux firewall machine between the 2 computers, and link a computer on each port. you can use a cheap sbc that has 2 ethernet ports (or wifi), that is affordable and it's still useful for a bunch of other stuff like as a small backup server and such. if you are really tight on budget you can use an old laptop from a recycling center or family and just connect one pc to the ethernet and the other to the wifi. recommendations would be: orange pi zero for wifi+ethernet (~15 bucks) or NanoPi R2S (~40 bucks) if you want dual ethernet you could also use an old pc + an usb to ethernet adapter. if you have an openwrt if you are on a 0$ budget you can always use a single machine and use virtual machines, but that can be more complicated to setup

[@adamcampbell9806]

I completely agree with trains. I've been developing a sci fi farm sim and one of my original ideas for it was that there has to be a train

[@DBeagleGames]

I'm trying to figure out how I can add a train into our demolition derby game. . . Maybe an arena obstacle perhaps. Or heck even a quirky car design. :^)

[@dark_elf_wizard]

26:15 if you want to make a story game in that way, it's like a tree, splitting every time there is a new option. to make it simple you can just make less options, but if you make a multiple choice game it's very hard to make it long because if you have 10 things that can be, and you want to ride more, you than need to ride 20 more stories. (i think it is fun to add 1 or 2 options to change the game, so than it would be 2 or 4 stories in one, but i dont even want to try more than 4 choices that can change the game.)

[@yahnych]

what if you make branches that do not change the story but rather making illusion of choice. just giving player some treat like different cutscene at some point. and maybe just summarize all choices at final and show them where their decisions took them. i think most of games work this way.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@yahnych I prefer the... Good, Evil, Chaos, Neutral, and True Endings style of narrative. All choices matter from the beginning to the final act.

[@dark_elf_wizard]

i like that too, but for every option there are 5 more storys. so with only 2 options you already need to make 25 storys@@absolstoryoffiction6615

[@dark_elf_wizard]

that also works, but it means that only the gameplay remains the same and the story around it changes every time.@@yahnych

[@BlueGooGames]

Great tier list and discussion. I’m also thinking that difficulty might be an option to new game+ to make the game more replayable. When you play the first time, maybe you start on easy and work your way up. As long as the game is interesting enough to play more than once :)

[@zhulikkulik]

Control remapping is a must-have, IMHO. Keyboard has like 100 keys to choose from. Bonus points if you let people separate, say, use from get in. Or crouch from skip dialogue. Also some keyboards don't have some keys or their layout has some keys in different places. And qwerty azerty as you mentioned. Only if your game is literally menu based or uses like 5 buttons you can say "It's definitely not worth the effort" But at the very least - give people two alternative mappings. Like arrows, z, x or wasd, j, k, for example. Please don't make tutorials part of the game. And perhaps don't make them intrusive. Meaning, tutorials that lead you by hand. All those "this outlined bouncing highlighted shinny button is this, press that bright green wiggling button to do that" evaporate from my brain as soon as I've pressed them. I would very much prefer readable UI. Literally. "Inventory" and" journal" instead of random 64x64 image of something that's either create or a book. Even "obvious" things might be misread. Like, "there's an icon of blood drop. Am I bleeding? Why my health doesn't decrease then? Oh, that's some kind of counter for some mechanic that you explained me a week ago in a whole paragraph of text that i can't read again!" PS Thanks for the idea. My game will definitely feature two modes - game journalist difficulty and normal difficulty. 😂😂

[@MoutPessemier]

I've seen multiple videos where you are talking about not implementing multiplayer. I agree, but what about and arcade game with a scoreboard that is synced to a server and where you are ranked against other players? Is this also part of the 'multiplayer pitfall' or does this fall under another category? P.S. Hi from Belgium 👋

[@sealsharp]

01) Translations Useful. Look at what your genres audience speaks and what they accept on other games. 02) Controller Depends on the genre, though the Steamdeck changed that a bit. Some genres are now considered controller-games like any sidescroller and even the average third person actiongame that does not include shooting guns. I would look at what the average person uses to play for the genre. 03) Rebinds Unitys new Input has "key position"-bindings, so my WADS are where there should be on azerty keyboards. However, for keyboard control's its a topic with a lot of emotional weight since people are used to their way of controlling games. For Gamepad, it's probably fine to go without rebinds for a lot of games. Toogle VS hold is also both a matter of taste and accessibility. 04) Graphic settings people like vsync The term "some people like vsync" is strange. On some systems, games without vsync look like shit with all the flicker and screen tearing. So a game without vsync is not an option. vsync on by default is probably fine for some genres, for others like action and especially shooters, the audience will be very very very mad. Also, don't forget to test the timing both with and without it and at high and artifically low FPS. 05) NG+ The completion rate of games is between 30% and 60%. Are player's who finished it once and wish to play it a second time the biggest issue you could solve with developement time? There's a reason this is often delivered by patch. 06) AntiCheat It's not as easy as just anti-cheat. For multiplayer games, especially player vs player and with matchmaking, it's not done with an anticheat solution from the asset store. Theres a reason why the big multiplayergames use both server logic and kernel level anticheat. Cheating in games is pandoras box. Don't bother for singleplayer, and if your players form the party by inviting their steam friends they can filter who they play with. 07) Achievements It's a nice way to add progression and goals to a game, and it's a few function calls. 08) UnitTests I'm not a fan of "Unittests take so much time thats why i dont do them". For some functions, writing unit tests is less work. My save system has unit tests, simple because with those i can test a lot of aspects of the system without having to start the game 4364 times and recreate the test situations over and over and over again. 09) Workshop Requires a healthy game to begin with. If you have a game that benefits from that, you know it. If you have to ask the question, you don't. 10) Demo YES-Tier. We can't win by paid advertising or hype. We need to convince. But holy shit, do not release crappy versions as demos. There's a difference between a playtest and a demo. My experience with NextFest 2024 has been kinda sad as i ignorelisted half of the games i played. 11) Multiplayer Multiplayer is S++ or F--. The game is either a multiplayer game, in that case it is not a discussion, or it is not. In that case, don't waste time. A lot of good story games of the last 25 years had their story cut short because corporate demanded multiplayer. Remember all the fun rounds of deathmatch we had in SpecOps:The Line? No? Me neither. 12) Branching Narrative I don't see that as a feature that can be added or removed after a discussion. It's either part of the design or not. There's not "we make an RPG, do we add branching narrative?". That's a different game. Important: Branching narrative is not the same as player influence. You can give the impression of a world that reacts to the players actions with very little work. The Deus Ex 1 toilet dialog comes to mind. Famously the tests of Dishonored generated the feedback that the game was "too linear" because players did not notice they had options, so they played differently and all thought that was the only way. 13) TRAINS Choo-Choo Charles sold. S++. 14) Difficulty Settings Depends on the genre. The difference in ability between players is massive.

[@gardian06_85]

for controller and rebinding (at least on PC): if you plan to ship your game on Steam, then through Steam-input which is just part of the Steam API (if you enable the steam overlay even if it is not active by the user) the user can enable a controller, even if you never implemented the functionality, and the user can even rebind the controller inputs as well. the biggest part for controller support is "can your controls be mapped to about 16 buttons and 2 joysticks (context switches are a thing), and does your game really, really, really require a mouse "for precision" also like Unity and Godot, Unreal through the Enhanced Input Subsystem (semi-required starting in Engine 5.1-5.2) it supports rebinding with "minimal" work AntiCheat: there is no perfect anti-cheat there is only an arms race, and "trust" in both the players trusting players and the players trusting the company overseeing it. go look up "cheating in Valorant" or "hacking in Valorant" (this is one of the most notable kernal level anti-cheat games, and it still has only a 60% success rate and that is only on the people that don't know what they are doing. the "most effective" anticheat is providing the system, the monitor, the peripherals, and locking out every other port on the system, and even then if the game is network attached you might still have issues.

[@juangabrieleliasgomez518]

anticheats are an extremely important subject for certain games such as competitive games like shooters or rts wich are also multiplayer, but they got to be treated with respect, kernel anticheaters are hard to trust from companies with big budgets, and for a solo dev or indie company i find it very hard to believe that can be pulled off withouth risking your players pc. its not about who makes the anticheat, for the company might have good intentions, but all it takes is one person to see the security flaws of a small dev team to take control over other people computers. other times it is about those who make the anticheat, see ESEA and their mining scandal. its best to either stick to simple anticheaters, maybe one that runs while you play the game (like sXe injected for 1.6 used to be), or just even better, dont make a competitive multiplayer game as a solo dev, lol

[@Sedokun]

30:40 It may be a better idea instead of adding difficulty settings, add some accessibility settings. Like immortality, time dilation etc. Especially if you game is story based but have some insane challenges.

[@containedhurricane]

A big branching narrative game usually doesn't need other features to succeed

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Narrative Games with alternate paths is heavily dependant on the Writer/Story Board. And Sand Box Narratives (with the help of AI) has a massively different story telling compared to traditional multi choice stories. I've done both and it's much easier to do the 1st Example than the 2nd Example. As the 2nd Example requires that you are able to write a good story without main characters that isn't just 100% told through World Building. The potential is there but I have yet to see a game that doesn't have true "main characters" in a narrative sense. Almost every story, except for the Player Character, has Named Characters.

[@containedhurricane]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Your theory is very interesting. I really want to learn more about Sand Box Narratives and Traditional Multi-Choice Stories, since I don't have screenwriting skills. Could you please tell me how to learn those stuff?

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@containedhurricane What I learned is from playing/watching games + personal projects. I can't point to a website or book specifically. For video game narratives of multiple choices... The illusion of choice, actual Endings, and Sand Box Narratives... Are the three pillars of making a more player agency story. The limits with Single Narrative Stories are that you're just watching a Movie that may or may not end differently such as Until Dawn. Unlike a true multi narrative story with proper Good and Bad Endings etc. Player Agency is the most important but the difference between a Movie and a Game is easy to mess up, than to achieve.

[@containedhurricane]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Ok, thanks for the info

[@drfiveminusminus]

I've developed a solo game with a branching narrative. I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it does require heavy tradeoffs and a lot of work(it took me about 1.5 years working with an established engine.) It's definitely a lot easier in a text based format, though. I doubt I could have done it with full animation and voice acting.

[@Braneloc]

Where would you guys place editing a "text" file for non-critical but very nice to have graphics settings and remapping controls

[@635574]

Maybe consider not every country has the same default keyboard, thats why action heavy games can't just assume qwerty or wasd are always used. I also played flash games when I was a kid where num keys werent assigned to the keys but to the characters which makes using czech keyboard just bad, we need to press shift for the numbers.

[@este_marco]

azerty/querty option is absolutely necessary if you don't have rebindable controls tho

[@este_marco]

ok i paused 1 second before it being adressed

[@astrolemonade349]

Thank you! Great list! I will add the following(where possible): - the game to be DRM-free(increases the preservation nature of your game) - local co-op - modding API(via Lua or some toolkit you provide)

[@mandisaw]

DRM is up to the platform, it's generally not something an indie is going to want to control or opt-out of. Part of what kills mobile indies is that overseas companies regularly strip free+ads games, and repackage them with their own ad-layer, so they can reap the benefits. Similar deal on desktop, where DRM-free just fast-tracks you to the top of the pirate boards 😅

[@tymondabrowski12]

​@@mandisaw I can see the problem on mobile, but on PC, how much dies it affect sales? I mean if someone not willing to pay plays it, then whatever, they wouldn't pay either way, no one's losing really. On mobile it's different because they go to the same market and can outcompete you easily.

[@mandisaw]

@@tymondabrowski12 Hard to say how many PC pirate-downloads would've been sales. Most indies never even get discovered by paying fans, let alone non-paying ones. But ppl swiping your game & just putting it up for sale elsewhere is just as possible for desktop as mobile. Steam is not the only PC marketplace in the world 🤷 On mobile, it's often *not* on the same marketplace. They put it up on alternate Android markets, sometimes with a poor language wrapper to translate it.

[@astrolemonade349]

@@mandisaw there are multiple successful game dev companies that don't care about piracy! Most of them even promote piracy instead of grey markets since they don't receive the money anyway. Also, if the game is really good, pirated games can transform into purchases. That's a story I read multiple times. The enshittification that happens these days is beyond me, you can't own a game and that's a norm which is wtf.

[@mandisaw]

@@astrolemonade349 I suppose if your game is out-of-print, or otherwise unavailable elsewhere, then sure, you can tell ppl to do whatever. Most folks still offering their game for sale would prefer people buy it. Try before you buy is why demos & stuff like Game Pass exists.

[@haruruben]

Localization is different than translation. Localizations could include cultural considerations, like some reference or name or an icon might not mean the same thing to a foreign audience. Localization might also mean adjusting features, for example I worked on an app that used certain hand gestures (mobile device) and we noticed very poor performance in Indonesia so for whatever reason in that region certain swipes and gestures weren’t used so for that region we dynamically added buttons which made the experience more cluttered so we didn’t include those for outside that region.

[@ruf256]

About the party games. In reality if you have a local multiplayer in steam you can use remote play together for the online multiplayer and it works really well. It's kind of a saviour to indie devs but local party games dont sell that much anyways

[@nowonmetube]

Oh I'm so glad I had a train straining in mind from the beginning. 😁 It's like probably the first location I thought of for that game.

[@galamotshaku]

At our studio we almost got dead threats for not implementing an option to invert the X & Y axis in the mouse. I didn't even know people do that with first person controllers XD

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

I don't invert my Camera because (as a player) it feels wrong to my eye hand coordination. But not everyone is the same.

[@5chneemensch138]

It's a perception thing. Some people see the mouse as like a head. If you put your hand on a head and push forward, the head goes DOWN. Other people see the mouse itself making you go UP if the mouse goes UP.

[@Badguy292]

As a Dane, I appreciate the mention of our language, but I must admit, most of us do understand English as well, so definitely agree on that first point. Localization is less of a necessity.

[@JOZUWE]

i translated my first game (Karina Katana) in 10 Languages, but that was possible for me to do in a week because i dont have that much text in thr game

[@JoachimPileborg]

Watching this again, there's one "feature" I missed: Randomly and procedurally generated worlds / scenes / levels /etc. Maybe do a retake in a couple of months? 😉

[@zhulikkulik]

Must have features, IMHO: Subtitles Key remapping Graphics settings (at least resolution, windowed mode, toggles for motion blur and similar things). Volume sliders and colorblind modes. This includes designing a game such that even in b&w you can distinguish things from background and similar items from each other. For example, life potion is in a heart shaped bottle or has a heart on label, but acid/poison is in triangular bottle and has scull on label. Subtitles. Ability to skip everything that isn't gameplay. Not at once, but like skip cutscenes, voiced sentences, etc with a couple presses of a button or by holding a button. In UI-heavy games - text tips for icons. Like how in most OS's and programs you can hover over something and it gives you a little text box with the name of the thing or a description. Bonus points for moveable and scalable windows in your UI Subtitles

[@LutraLovegood]

Option to disable chromatic aberrations! I've seen at least one game that had forced, and just no. Thankfully you can usually disable motion blur.

[@TheLebonnobel]

what about multiplayer but through the steam remote play function ? Like for a fighting game

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Although interesting. That, however, is 100% based on Steam/Valve legal wise. Much like Cross Play and Cross Save for the Consoles. It is out of the Dev's hand.

[@satibel]

planning for these features will make it way easier to implement if you want and usually make your game easier to develop in general for controller, in a menu heavy make your menus support tab navigation (i.e. use tab to switch between buttons and space to press the button, if you want to support controller you just have to take your list of buttons and find the closest in that direction), and outside of menus, have wasd movement. though some games like rts may be harder to support controller on, but look at similar games with controller support to see how it can be done. for localization, put your text in variables that are loaded from a resource file, not only it makes localization way easier, you don't have to recompile your whole game just to change a typo or a bit of dialogue same goes for keybinds, have the keys be loaded from a config file, if you want to add a configuration menu later you just have to do that, otherwise you can just have players who want to change keybinds modify the config file

[@dark_elf_wizard]

04:04 het is leuk als spellen ook in het Nederlands beschikbaar zijn, maakt het makkelijker begrijp baar. als het enkel weg is gedaan omdat de teksten te lang waren, waarom zijn de teksten dan niet korter opgeschreven? (sorry if you dont speak dutch.)

[@dark_elf_wizard]

I can understand English, but I understand much more in Dutch. (i needed google translate to know how to type understand...)

[@bitemegames]

Omdat sommige woorden gewoon heel lang zijn, het gaat niet enkel over zinnen, maar ook individuele woorden. Zeker als je werkt in een fantasy context, waar er soms geen Nederlandse vertaling voor zijn in het algemeen (Wat is "knockback" in het nederlands zelfs). En een mix van Engels + Nederlands is ook heel awkward. -M

[@tominatorxx]

Lokalisatie is één van die functionaliteiten waar je in een eerste oogopslag het gevoel van hebt dat het redelijk makkelijk te implementeren van zodra er een degelijke vertaling gemaakt is. Ik doe heel wat grafisch ontwerp en een beetje wireframe prototyping werk in mijn job en ook daar kom je dezelfde hordes tegen die Marnix aanhaalde in de video. Je ontwerpt een design en dan moet dit ook werken in 6 - 8 verschillende talen. Van Nederlands tot Japans. Bij kleine ontwerpen is het soms nog mogelijk om in te schatten welke taal nogal langdradig gaat zijn in de vertaling (Duits, Nederlands of Frans zijn vaak de lastigste naar mijn ervaring), maar bij grote projecten (waaronder games natuurlijk ook absoluut vallen) is dit ongelofelijk moeilijk om in te schatten. En weet je dit vaak maar pas als je al heel wat tijd in het lokalisatiewerk hebt gestoken. Het kan bijvoorbeeld zijn dat Frans 70% van de tijd het meeste plaats inneemt in tekstvakken en/of knoppen, maar de andere 30% van de tijd zijn Duits en Nederlands het probleem. Daardoor wordt het enorm moeilijk om jouw design of UI te schalen op een coherente manier. Zodra dit onderwerp aan bod kwam in de video wist ik meteen hoe herkenbaar het ging zijn. Ik kan zeker hun beslissing begrijpen in dat opzicht. Je hebt maar een gelimiteerde hoeveelheid middelen en op een bepaald moment moet je de beslissing maken of het wel prioritair of opportuun is om het te implementeren. Hoe graag je het ook zou hebben in jouw project.

[@dimonasdf]

Why would you drop Rewired in favor of Unity's input, though? It's easy to setup, convenient to use and has stuff like rebinding out of the box.

[@mozaiczny7915]

6:08 "It's not my problem." I love that :)

[@RyanVaterlaus]

I think it would be best to make a tier list of certain game genres like FPS or Visual novels. Since many of the features you were talking about had their score heavily influenced by many different genres. For instance if I was making a visual novel, is difficulty rating really something that would be considered ranked as A?

[@BenderBendingRodriguezOFFICIAL]

Mod support really does sustain games but it needs an initial audience first.

[@AryanshMalviya]

Controls rebinding depends on the engine too. For example, if we're talking about Godot then it is an absolute no brainer because every control is just an action with a default bind and all your programming is done with action. So you can simply have the player press a button and it receives that key and puts it to that action.

[@theebulll]

Good video. Good trains.

[@Spidyy]

Difficulty settings is relative to your own game, and most importantly how you intend to "tweak" that difficulty. There is the lazy way and the dedicated way. The easy way is just tweaking numbers, which is the less costly way to do and allow players to enjoy your game even if they are not good at it, while the dedicated way is like adding more enemies, new enemy variants, new endings, more level branches or level variations the higher the difficulty is, which requires rebalancing a whole new game for each settings you want, but add a lot to the replayability of the game, and players will be eager to replay in harder mode to discover new things. In term of value, the lazy way is a A tier to me. Easy to implement and allow every players to enjoy your game whatever their gaming skill are, so it should be implemented everytime. Maybe not right during early access, but at least for your game release. The dedicated way is between C tier to me. It can meaningfully extend your game lifetime and enjoyability and raise your game to the "memorable" kind by the sheer quantity of experience you offer to the player, but it will require much more development which you make you go over budget easily. But that can push your game from "game that try to please everyone" to "game that offer an experience to everyone".

[@petersmythe6462]

I would say controller support is most critical in genres where analog inputs are standard. In rough order of importance: Flight sim > racing > shooter > RPG > anything top down and macro scale.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

For Indie Action Combat/Adventure Games... Custom Game Controls & Controller Support Color Blind Mode (for Character Customizations such as Color) Music/Sound Options & Visual Effects Options Simple Mode and Complex Mode for Combat Styles. Cross Saves and Cross Play (console dependant) English Language and English Sub first (for me, in America). Bots for PvP stuff and Offline & Online Support. Dedicated Servers. I think this is all the technical side that most players will interact with in "Settings" among other things. Now... As far as actual game mechanics/content goes? That's up in the air as the Hat of Infinity is endless. I mainly do Conceptual Design Adventure Games across all platforms as a hobby. So my list is what I consider as "Basic Necessities" when designing games. It is the foundation to which everything else is built on.

[@bruceburnett5372]

Great vid, Thanks. "If you're a Solo Dev...How do you test multiplayer?"...you should have that on a T shirt! Train people are funny...there is rationality to their obsession, but it doesn't help. Wife's Gran worked on rail in Canada...the whole family is train obsessed.

[@coffeecaveman123]

"Take a shot for every clown take." I died just at the train part alone. But you're onto something with the fishing though...

[@scorpius666999]

Just gonna do my two cents on branching narratives. Like a lot of stuff on this list it depends on implementation. I usually go with variable checks, for example if some quest was completed in a certain way I give it a flag, at some point during the game that flag gets checked and depending on the outcome either a different map is loaded or a certain narrative resolution plays out. Think of it in a way you see the old outro screens in original Fallout games, or New Vegas, that would be the simple example, but you can apply the same principle for anything, for some reason I like to do this with opening certain areas in the world. That way it is easier to control multiple narratives and you get a lot more variation than in a classical sense like it is with visual novels. Of course visual novels can be done in a similar way. One benefit of the whole thing is, at any point in time you can give up from the certain narrative part for whatever reason and you don't really have to make huge changes.

[@petersmythe6462]

Even if it's just reading them in from a config file I would say control rebinding is important.

[@aerion4077]

@6:07 'dont care didnt ask' lmao. love you guys

[@tiraths27]

Battle pass / daily login rewards - although these are more for multiplayer so understand why they were not included

[@tchq]

You forgot one crucial "feature" - REGIONAL PRICES! :-))

[@KarlexanderStudios]

What about ragdoll physics ? Or in-game level editor(To me it looks like it would be time consuming but be totally worth it in terms of attracting players)

[@Phraxas52]

Trains are S-tier. It is known. It doesn't have to be a ~train~ even. It can be any sort of logistics system, but trains do it best.

[@YangyChaddyDad]

I unironically think this is true in 90% of games

[@dinoeebastian]

I just had deja vu watching the train segment lol

[@obake6290]

I listen to what you say and think "You guys are crazy. This is way more important than what you're describing." Then you give it a ranking and I think "okay, yeah I kinda agree with that." The graphics option discussion was interesting to me. My mind went straight to things like resolution, texture quality, AA levels, and was thinking these are not very important. Doubly so for indie games that never - or at least almost never - have graphics demanding enough to warrant those settings. I didn't even think about things like motion blur, FOV, and I would add bloom to that list. Graphical settings that when enabled actually make games unplayable in my opinion. What you are describing as NG+ is really just new difficulty settings. NG+ just means you start the game over with all the upgrades you got in the first playthrough, with increased difficulty being optional. Either way I don't see it as worth it, so agree with you there. And on to actual difficulty settings - I think these are generally not implemented well. First off, being able to change the difficulty mid-run is something that should be done more often. Like you said - you don't know how good you will be at the game at the title screen. Second, I think you should really focus on one default "normal" difficulty (side note - don't design around one difficulty and call it "hard" - that's stupid). Make adjustments from that baseline to make the game easier or harder, and don't use difficulty as an excuse to poorly design your difficulty curve and just say "well, the players have options!"

[@LutraLovegood]

Resolution setting should be mandatory, period.

[@Z3R0542]

Quick question where would you rank early access for games?

[@flatvoxel5861]

Both my previous games have a train boss, now I just have to find out how to do it again for my next one. About tutorials: I think that even when they're not that necessary, they can still be useful for introducing characters and setting.

[@chaosordeal294]

NG+ is something you do after release as free DLC if the game takes off.

[@fiveprime7968]

Smart idea!

[@AurelUrban]

I disagree on tutorials. They are a MUST. Not every tutorial has to be a defined chunk in the game with blocks of text explaining the game mechanics, but every game needs to teach the player how to play it somehow. Even just telling the player which button to press when it's first relevant and clearly demonstrating every core game mechanic at some point. It's bare minimum but I would still call it a tutorial because it is an extra thing the developer needs to keep in mind. I would even argue that tutorials are so essential that even a bad tutorial is better than no tutorial. So that one would be an S tier for me for SURE.

[@LutraLovegood]

And preferably one you can check again at any time. People are going to skip it a lot of the time but want to check it again later.

[@EriksBlue]

the control and rebinding feature are important if you want disabled ppl to play your games

[@szeredaiakos]

IMHO for faster passed games rebinds are essential. I've refunded games for lacking rebinds before and there is a reason why i don't buy bethesda anymore. The good news is, you can't get a shittier control system than bethesda. Also, there are people who don't have all of their fingers or may have a hand missing. Disabled people also have a higher chance of being gamers.

[@KingKryptify]

In my opinion, branching narratives can be a good thing, though I tend to lean on them converging at one point is crucial. Something Like Fire Emblem 7 or Sacred Stones.

[@DillyGameDev]

I'm gonna add trains to my game now

[@goggog49]

In defense of trains, I have an idea for a navel game, and I 100% want to add trains

[@edward3190]

I'm not sure a demo would do good for my game. My game is a space sim/flight sim. The control takes some time to get used and start enjoying it. Players might get frustrated if they only play for 20-30 minutes, and end up stay away from the game.

[@AmateurGameDeveloper]

It's funny, but I'm RIGHT NOW making a train and railway station level for my first game Shadow Pulse (can be found on Steam) 😃

[@lovyNOM]

thanks! This is useful, I really gotta get around to create achievements and a demo for my game sooner than later.. might pass of the Train-kun idea though..

[@johntravis7304]

@25:23 I feel extremely called out and will show myself the door excuse me lol but I was thinking branching paths with different endings BUT with JRPG SNES style. Still scope creep? hm. PS: anyone remember nier automatat's 27+ endings? hilarious

[@PNKnews]

Hi. I'm planning to translate the game into Chinese but there are several Chinese languages, is there a unified one that you translated to? I hear there is something that's called "simplified Chinese" is that the one to choose? Also I would argue that google translate does a good enough job translating things like button labels and objectives of the mission. I speak several languages and the output from Google Translate does makes sense. Just my 5c.

[@cecile5271]

Simplified Chinese is enough, and then you can convert it directly to Traditional Chinese, or vice versa, they are almost the same.