The Design Philosophy of Dark Souls

An Indie Dev and a AAA Dev discuss two different approaches to game design - Bottom Up and Top Down. Learn how Dark Souls' unique approach has led to their overwhelming success.
Hosts:
Forrest Imel
forrestimel.com/
Gavin Gray Valentine
www.ggvart.com/
Join the Distraction Makers Discord: / discord
0:00-2:42 Intro
2:43-11:11 Bottom Up Design
11:12-21:24 Top Down Design

[@highseasbanditry]

0:18 - Editing advice - if a cat is walking thru the shot, do NOT cut to (a) close-up(s) that do(es) not include the cat.

[@distractionmakers]

Haha you got it!

[@andrewhartman1131]

You guys really need to Tunic. After listening to a developer interview, it really feels like a game that was designed with the most intentionality of any game ever. Every inclusion, every secret, every discovery the player makes feels like the dev said “and this is when the player will realize that.”

[@ericaschner3283]

Cat Podcasting: The Game. You take on either the role of a game design podcaster or his cats intent on preventing all podcasting. Who will prevail?

[@megapussi]

I think slay the spire is a great example of how to leverage both sides. sts was made by a 2 person team; ones a card game nerd, the other doesnt even like card games. While I cant speak exactly to what hats they wore during development, my general impression is that one of them rlly wanted to make a card game and was more inclined to design unique and interesting mechanics, whereas the other developer was more focused on how the game felt to play and designing things that created unique experiences. With their collective effort they made a game that is intuitive for beginners yet infinitely deep, appeals to both casual gamers and calculating pros

[@00101001000000110011]

Devil May Cry is the best example that jumps to mind when considering "top down" design. we have documented statements where the lead designer starts with "how do i make the next resident evil" and goes down such a rabbit hole that it touches DMC, then having to actually make RE discarding all the DMC progress.

[@RodrigoLopezandfriends]

In Guilty Gear vampires are extremely physically powerful, which is weird in a fighting game where everyone needs to be somewhat balanced. The compromise is that when you beat a vampire, instead of ending up sprawled on the floor, unconscious, they instead lay on their side with a grin like “ok, ok, you did well so I give up”.

[@totalvoid6234]

Did you really just reference Plants vs Zombies as an example of a bottom up design and then say the big issue is it leads to weak affordances? Obviously it can lead to weak affordances, it can even tend in that direction but it can also create the strongest affordances because of the lack of restrictions.