Indie Designer's Journal #17 Using Similar Mechanics in Different Designs!

[@robantonelli01]

Thanks for the great video as always. I finally (finally!) ordered Tin Helm the other day when it went on sale as the Deal of the Day on TGC. So excited and can’t wait to get my copy!⚔️🛡️

[@jasonglover6615]

That Deal of the Day was insane. I had no idea it had started. I checked my email around dinner time and saw that I sold like 10-15 copies in the past hour. I thought that maybe a video review was posted on KZbin or something. Sometimes even a Reddit post will drive a bunch of sales. Than I saw that it was the Deal of the Day. I think I sold like 150 copies and a bunch of other add-ons. Very nice little Christmas bonus for myself. I appreciate your support and I hope you enjoy your time with Tin Helm!

[@dolomite13]

Honestly draw two flip one mechanic is great I like how you have tweaked it with each game.

[@mattj3301]

Hey Jason, I have never played any of your games (or even really known about any indie games), but I stumbled upon your videos and have greatly enjoyed them. Listening has gotten my mind going about different game mechanics building on the 2 card pick 1 exploration system, and even thinking about trying to make something myself building on that idea. Have you ever considered implementing that draw 2 pick 1 concept outside of exploration, such as in a combat deck (in place of dice)? There could be a miss card that you can't skip, and there could be 2 tiers on the cards with different variables to ramp up tension.

[@renatocavasini9118]

Hello Jason! Thank you for making your games available on PnPArcade. I live in Brazil and here we have some difficulties with imports. I'm looking forward to Tin Helm, Gates and the other Iron Helm expansions. Congratulations for your work.

[@perplexingruins]

great video Jason. I can't speak too well to game designers (not having deep enough experience) but you see this in fine arts. Where an artist will work the same themes, colors, compositions, for sometimes decades. It becomes a dialogue with themself, i think. an exploration. then as the audience, you get to be part of that story. cool to see your thoughts about your games like this

[@shineLouisShine]

Your honesty, your perspective, your sharing, your creativity, your attitude... They are most welcome, They are all fascinating, And non of them is being taken for granted. Thank you!

[@Blu3_Mage]

So glad you've been doing these weekly! I really look forward to it and get excited when I see the upload notification pop up.

[@jasonglover6615]

Thanks! I am trying to get one out each Saturday. Sometimes life gets in the way, but I think I have a nice system in place now, so hopefully the weekly videos continue.

[@anjovimusic]

Iron helm is a really ballsy design IMO. It lays itself out as a very unforgiving experience that can make a player cry out "BROKEN!" (the prejudice towards it being an unpublished design probably doesn't help), but once it clicks, it's super addicting and provoking (keep finding myself thinking about it). I did get to a point where I found myself wanting more challenge, which totally puts the iron chest + difficulty modifiers in context. Been having a really good time messing around with it, finding unsuspectingly good combos to rock that dungeon. But the theme....My god, the way you made the theme ooze from all of the different components gets me going "THIS MAN GETS IT!". I feel like you could've easily just called it "16 card dungeon crawl" or some boring name and just threw a bunch of monsters/items/bosses together and balanced them, but you went that extra mile and made everything feel cohesive and I absolutely adore it. The fact that you're just one dude doing this is incredible! Gives the game so much soul. Even my initial quibbles about the morality tracker (where i felt like it doesn't seem to impact the game much when considering the goods you get by doing selfish deeds) have subsided and i just imagine an intention of getting players going "what does morality even mean!?!?" and get a chuckle. It just sort of sits there as a very subtle modifier that, to me, asks whether the morality matters to the hero as he rides off into the sunset. Definitely gave me that itch to try doing some video reviews and try my hand at analyzing stuff like this more deeply.

[@jasonglover6615]

Thanks! I really do try to design games that I want to play myself and bring me back to being a kid. I once spent 3 hours making a character for D&D back in the day, only to have another player literally backstab and kill me before we left the first village. lol... For Iron Helm I want to capture that helplessness a little bit.

[@average_melon]

These videos are great, thanks so much! One topic that could be interesting to cover is secondary mechanics. For example, after you figure out how exploration and combat works, I'm curious how you come up with mechanics like morality and poison for Iron Helm and favor for Tin Helm. How do you make sure that they add value, since there's also a risk of overcomplicating things?

[@jasonglover6615]

That is a solid idea for am episode! Thanks!

[@pkarguth]

Great video as always, really enjoy your insight and openness about your process. The big brother to gate could be called... "Iron gate" 😅 To answer your end question I'd say that the FFG coop LCG's have built upon each other and made different choices in each but follow a similar idea/mechanic.

[@jasonglover6615]

Iron Gate would be hilarious! Might cause a lot of confusion though... lol FFG's LCGs is a good example. The D&D board game series is another one.

[@bboykrakeder348]

I was thinking to make a Dungeon crawler of exploration system like Desolate/tin helm but, instead of solve 2 cards and discard the other 2 without seen, you can see all the options, but if you don't solve the others... Roll a die and if you obtain bad puntuation (1-2) these bad card upgrades backing It more dangeours. And changes the orientation like "Palm island". With this system you can choose bad cards because you prevent súper worse cards in a future rounds of exploration deck. And in high levels, the bad cards in level 4 have a % to make damage although you don't solve It as a first choose.

[@walderjohan]

hey love yur games! real nice journal

[@rdjmclennan]

I am primarily a composer and I totally get what you are saying about exploring the same "style" over and over because you feel you still haven't really "nailed" its potential. A lot of artists from Picasso to the Beatles had two or three specific stylistic periods defined by the design mechanic/atmosphere. The composer, Edward Elgar, wrote his "Enigma Variations" which seems to have a theme that is never quite realized; hence the "enigma". I think an artist's style may often be defined by the search for this enigma and perhaps what you are saying about your return to the same/or similar ideas/mechanics/art styles is this same journey.

[@christopherboyne8451]

Ooooo... CMON, who uses the same mechanic over and over and over.... and over..... ? 🤣😅🤣😅🤣😅🤣 So excited for Under Quest!! 🖖🤓👍

[@jasonglover6615]

Ha! That is a great example of it.

[@bboykrakeder348]

For me, the tin helm with a few changes, is a Game perfect: *Icon cards(1 by card) combined and 2 cards or 2 cards to solve. *Allows attack without spend energy but with very bad results. This depends the race to balance the character. The Heros with +3 damage spending only 1 energy has Better results without energy, and viceversa; very bad results for Heros with +1/+2 damage Whose spend 1 energy. *A deck of results to resolve the icons with new original tramps. *Spend Favor to buy items & food. *The altar has a cost, and prevent don't use altar and Risk with low HP/energy raises the % to obtain the highest premium faster. *Hard % to obtain initial Hero items *A litle more changes... All in a BGG. The problem of all this is that breaks the essence of few components of a tiny Game... :( The enemies deck can be doble side. One by face allows pick randoms.

[@CH-fp6gj]

I would be curious how you balance your games and what math or tricks you use? Thanks for the videos

[@jasonglover6615]

Hmmm, that could be an interesting episode. Typically I use a lot of of notebook paper writing up charts graphs and a lot of testing.

[@baroldalt312]

Adventure Tin uses the "roll 2 dice, find the difference" mechanic.

[@jasonglover6615]

I will have to check that one out.