#Design Theory

[fletchingbrilliant]

On Color Choices in Character Design

***Remember that this isn't meant to tell anybody they're wrong about character design. These are, at the end of the day, fantasy cartoon characters. It's just an invitation and a suggestion to experiment.*** One final bit to roll around in your brainses. This is just about blonde characters in general. Reach out past blue eyes!!!!! I bring up human and pre-fall angel versions of Lucifer with this subject as well. I think we need to step away from blonde hair and blue eyes indicating ‘goodness and purity,’ and we need to do that 1000 years ago. The history on that is loaded beyond words. And for those who don’t know just how deep that subject goes, with legitimate love in my heart I recommend reading on this subject. Not to advance your art. Just because it’s a difficult, but useful thing to know when it comes to being an open-hearted human in our world. <3 And, as someone who grew up with blonde hair very dark brown eyes, and black eyebrows/body hair, it really bummed me out that artists never seemed to notice that most blonde folks don’t even have blue eyes! But they desinged E V E R Y blonde character with blue (or sometimes green) eyes. Lucifer has these beautiful MASSIVE black eyebrows. Our body hair color is WAAAY more closely tied to our eye color, with how it is determined by our genetics. So why don’t we play with him having gold, or silver eyes as an angel - something less human entirely - and as a human, how about reddish brown? (let’s not even go into how most people with blonde hair as children end up with much darker hair as they reach adulthood, if we wanna get really particular about real world stuff) Just try more things, explore different ways people can look, and keep an open mind. Love you! ---

[s3znl-gr3znl]

Replaying AC6 (its like my 8th run at this point) and I'm only now beginning to wonder why lots of the AC designs you see from characters dont have a more reliable weapon in their right hand.

The only ones that come to mind that do are Rusty, Nightfall, and Iguazu (using kinetic weapons specifically) while many others opt for a more explosive option in their right hand and their main weapon in the left hand.

Some examples of that are Sulla and Volta, both opting for an explosive in the right hand and a more aggressive close-range weapon in the off hand. (Not to mention poor Ziyi who only has small grenade launchers in either hand)

Having learned a bit more about the community and older games I suspect its because many AC vets found it was better to play the game by holding the controller upside down like this

and thus would select a reliable primary for their left hand. So this strikes me as a subtle nod to the series' past, as well as a statement on the character/AC and their design theories/preferences.

[mclalan]

I wrote a flowery text about this style, AI and what I think the future of the design industry will look like soon!

[jwwwdot]

Death The Kid.

[alchemicaldesignquery]

Marvel...Rivals...Maybe?

Ngl, my interest was fairly low on first announcement a ways back and has remained fairly low throughout the various explainers, releases, gameplay footage.

Third person in a PvP environment has some issues with cameras, environment clipping, and hitboxes as a general practice, but they might have solved for all of those. Still skeptical...

But then I saw these two:

A Strategist (support for Overwatch mains), that is two heroes in one; one the healer/buffer, the other utility/debuffer.

The uniqueness of the hero(es) kit is not to be denied, as switching between the two seamlessly during the match is a very solid take on something that has long been thought of as awkward in design execution.

Often times this concept leans more toward one of a pair being much more limited in scope, treated more like a totem or avatar for the main character.

This will be (to my knowledge) one of the first times that the concept has a shared level of equal measure between each. I'm anticipating them being a favourite-

-at the very least though, it's gotten me intrigued enough to want to give it a try.

(That and Overwatch Classic has also ended and I've got no real urge to go back and play after that enjoyable 3 week period. Not until the rest of the promised tests make an appearance)

[goblincow]

Been thinking about this & putting it into practice when writing The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick for a while: thanks to the ever excellent @babblegumsam (who you are probably already following and if not now is your chance to rectify that) for the final straw that made me write this up today. I truly believe if you have any interest in TTRPGs, play, or design you'll get something out of it, it's a further 5.4 mins read from here on out.

--------------------

Play is interaction.

Reading is interaction.

Below I will argue the necessity & usefulness of thinking the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs as (almost) the exact same thing to unlock a wide & deep potential as reader/player/designer.

--------------------

Reading & play don't have to be the same thing. But you can't play without reading (in the sense of reading representations, images, ideas, concepts, interactions, etc, not just written text), because then there could be no interaction.

Reading and play can both accurately describe a given act or process. For instance: I read a table or piece of prose in a TTRPG book.

I say this because this is an idea that people struggle with, and while I encourage debate around the concept, we first have to agree on some basic building blocks that I hope I'm able to communicate here. For instance, there exists a potential reality in which tabletop roleplaying games are called tabletop reading games and nothing else about them changes (except for the consequential ability to think of reading in ttrpgs as play, and the potential this tool unlocks), because the prerequisite role for all other roles being played in a role-playing game is that of the reader.

This is true for much more than TTRPGs, but if we simply focus on acknowledging that reading & play in ttrpgs can and often are the same thing, then we are able to make informed design choices on this basis that we otherwise lack the agency to make – and which are nonetheless choices that are being made while we miss the opportunity to observe, read & ultimately interact and/or change and/or play with them.

To not think of the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs in this way is to limit your agency as a designer, reader, player, and ultimately to cause yourself to be unable to synthesise these roles which are deeply inter-related, perhaps more so than they are disparate.

However you define it, Good Design necessitates the application of the right tool for the job. This requires making, maintaining & improving the tools that you have access to. The reader/player relationship is not only one of these, but an integral one that precedes a great many (if not all) of the other tools that you can & do employ as designer/player/reader.

If you allow this tool to remain blunt and imprecise (and especially if you don't acknowledge that it exists and that you use it in every choice you make), what you are doing is making a choice to blunt all of your other tools, even if you aren't aware of it.

This is poor design, poor play, and poor reading,* and I believe that this is true regardless of how you define each of those terms.

*though of course we could - and I think should - argue over the semantics & limitations of my imprecise use of the word "poor" there and the further ideas it smuggles in unacknowledged, but I trust that you will be able to infer what I'm trying to communicate in my use of it and I further hope that by leaving this imprecise application of a tool here in the way that I have used it, it might serve as a good example of the consequences, limitations & potential dangers of applying tools/terms/ideas that might be best described as "too blunt for the job", which is the very thing I'm attempting to highlight & address here.

It would not seem very sensible to choose to limit yourself in this way unless it allowed you access to new tools, which is a choice that you could only make once you are familiar with the central idea I'm presenting here – in other words, if you break the rules without understanding them you are very unlikely to be taking a step forward and much more likely to just be shuffling in place or even stepping backwards.

I hope that this short interaction has unlocked or reinforced your access to a useful tool that will allow you to sharpen your understanding of the play/reading relationship in TTRPGs and in turn refine & maintain your existing tools and your ability to synthesise new ones.

I look forward to discovering with you what new agencies this allows us to unlock, and I hope you take what you have read here and play with it to design new realities that you & I have yet to imagine.

[courtingwonder]

Six Principles of Design

[noosphe-re]

The reason that iron filings placed in a magnetic field exhibit a pattern — or have form, as we say — is that the field they are in is not homogeneous. If the world were totally regular and homogeneous, there would be no forces, and no forms. Everything would be amorphous. But an irregular world tries to compensate for its own irregularities by fitting itself to them, and thereby takes on form.

Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form

[hellopuns]

“Pokémon aren’t supposed to be objects”

“Pokémon shouldn’t look this human it’s weird”

Gang. They are SUPER SENTAI, TOYS, AND KAIJU. They’ve been this since the beginning

[cannibalhalflinggaming]

"I’ve put a number of hours into a new playthrough of Stardew Valley, having previously put the game down after the 1.5 update. Compared to my last two playthroughs I’ve taken more time to consider the design of the game and what it can teach us about tabletop games. Much like the last time I analyzed a video game like this, No Man’s Sky, the intent is not to imply that the gameplay loops would make much sense at the tabletop; Stardew Valley’s most tactile elements, like its combat and fishing, belong firmly in the digital realm. Instead I’d say there’s a lot to learn about how Stardew Valley presents a world and the avenues by which a player can interact with that world. This world design is, in some ways at least, the opposite of No Man’s Sky. Stardew Valley presents a ‘closed world’ where the avenues of interaction are finite and presented from the beginning, and that mode of world design can teach some lessons to tabletop RPGs, either to designers or GMs." - @levelonewonk

[chiguirolover]

rap battle: cromatic circle vs circle of fifths

[colorbydev]

Triangle Mesh

[amaiguri]

Worldbuilding Eating Utensils in Fantasy

Okay okay okay... so I just watched this Utensil Design video and I was like. Omg. This is SO COOL! It's got some pretty sick real-life worldbuilding, so I immediately began to think about it in my world.

Maybe I am WAAAAY too detail oriented with my worldbuilding but honestly, it's not like I'm neglecting my characters and storytelling -- I just also wanna visually design everything to be slightly to the left of reality...

The Tl;dw:

Forks only became popular because of Italian pasta

Christian Priests thought forks were "the Devil's utensil" cuz like pitchforks. No forks. God gave you hands for a reason.

We should bring back eating knives

Chinese Chopsticks were considered to be refined while knives were considered barbaric by early Confucianists -- and thus, they belonged in the kitchen, while daintily picking up pre-chopped food with chopsticks is good

Chopsticks in Japan are considered a bridge between food and your mouth, just like bridges cross rivers or trees bridge you to the Gods. There are celebrations surrounding chopsticks when you're born and when you die. It's a BIG big cultural thing.

In India, your different fingers activate different chakras, so eating with your hands helps connect you to the natural world

So anyway, with those VERY COOL revelations (but seriously, go watch the video), I did some more worldbuilding on Yssaia's eating utensils. Please reblog or something to tell me about your world's eating utensils!

Here's mine:

Northern Culinary Tools

Northerners primary use eating knives -- cutting off their portion of food at the table -- and everyone carries their own set when going to eat at another person's house. This is also because, if someone is going to stab you, everyone is going to want to have their weapons on them.

Finger foods are not unheard of, but are more rare due to the prevalence of gloves year round. They are considered to be more intimate and/or lower class, depending on the context.

Soups are just drunk out of the bowl. Spoons are only for serving.

Demons

Eat with their hands or other shapeshifted appendages. Why would they waste effort making them when they can just bring the food to their mouth with their hands?

Among the Northern Demon Lords, there is probably some etiquette about how you do this (You can't just like gorge yourself with your mouth and dump it into your gullet all the time). It probably has to do with appearances to other people and maximizing your politeness and minimizing how easy it is to steal from you.

Sealfolk

Selkies are known for eating bowls of mackerel, eels, and sea grass whole. Because they can. They probably also invented forks for stabbing slippery things and then eating them. However, unlike in Western culture, you are not expected to eat the whole thing in one bite. You can stab and then take smaller bites off your fork.

Southern Culinary Tools

Southerners use chopsticks and bone spoons in conjunction with more disposable utensils, such as bread, to eat -- due to the heavier reliance on frying and boiling in their cuisine. Their food is generally warmer overall and, in some regions, spicier, thus making it physically harmful to eat with just your hands.

Also, the heavier reliance on fermentation in Telethens means you don't wanna put your filthy hands in the brine or you'll ruin its balance -- you have to use chopsticks to pluck stuff from the jars.

Sidebar: When I do revisions on my webfic, I am ABSOLUTELY going to have to have a scene where Arlasaire learns or even simply complains about having to use chopsticks and that is HILARIOUS.

That being said, the Blood Tsars -- particularly in the South East -- eat more with their hands due to long term connection with Demons. Designing food correctly for manual consumption + the ability to elegantly eat food with your hands and disposable utensils is considered peak culture there.

[drawdownbooks]

After a very long wait, copies have arrived from Europe! Immutable: Designing History by Chris Lee Available at Draw Down Books

Immutable: Designing History explores the banal genre of the document and its entanglement with statecraft and colonial(ism/ity). This is framed as a ~5,000 year chronology, imbricating the developments of money and writing—from Mesopotamian clay tablets to distributed ledgers, like the blockchain.

Immutability figures as a design imperative and hermeneutic for considering a variety of techniques (material, technological, administrative, etc.) of securitization against the entropy of a document’s movement through space/time, and the political. This project is driven by a contrast: design educators tend to teach forms like logos, books, websites, etc., but not passports, money, property deeds, etc., in spite of these being design’s most profoundly consequential forms.

As an alternative historiography, Immutable gestures both towards anthropologist Laura Nader’s call to “study up” (on those in power), and the radical educator Paolo Freire’s recognition of the “limit situation” as a generative condition for emancipatory praxis. The volume’s aim is to orient graphic design towards the vocation of imagining, naming, and remembering beyond the horizons of its role as a managerial, administrative, and colonial instrument that imposes a rationality of vision and accountability upon what is knowable, thinkable and sayable.

Designed by Chris Lee

Published by Onomatopee and Library Stack, 2023

Softcover, 192 pages, 50 duotone images, 5 × 7.75 inches

ISBN: 978-9-49-314842-0

[jwwwdot]

watch design.

[alchemicaldesignquery]

Overwatch Design: Hazard

It's been a while.

Now that the 6v6 test is slowly winding down (a month and a bit of solid testing and queue times is more than I expected to get in, honestly) and the Dev team is looking toward the next iterations (Moth Meta Classic and Min 1/Max 3, both of which are going to be less ideal versions of the format), I thought it prudent to go into another deep dive about the most recent hero release, and lemme just say-

This fuckin' guy.

There is a lot to like about Hazard; predictable mobility (A Winston jump + fair Doomfist rocket punch) , limited kit application (Bone Spurs + Not-ridiculous Dmg Reduction), space making (all of the above) and with some quirky weaknesses (Wall climb's odd slow down at the tail end is perfect for sleeps/knifes/walling). Overall, a really strong foundation with few/fixable adjustment zones.

And then there's the God. Damn. Wall.

Look, I enjoy Tank. It's been my main since jump, back when I mistakenly thought Mei's Wall was as good as a barrier and kept blocking my team off from being killed and allowingtheenemytohealbehindmywallandcontesttheobjectiveforfree-

(I was a Reinhardt main and didn't know it yet)

So it stands to reason I'm going to be a bit more harsh about my Tank critiques in design. Albeit, the recent slew of Tank releases has also been a bit concerning across the board, but that's another discussion- especially given most of Hazard's kit is very solid with plenty of potential.

But I cannot stress enough how bad it is to provide a front line presence, who is going to be spending the majority of their time not glancing back at their teammates to see what they are doing?

A totem mechanic with collision.

There is a very very very good reason why Mei is not a Tank.

Because if you thought getting walled off from shooting the enemy was bad, having your sightline artificially blocked so you can't heal, help, move, or adjust due to the same is worse. Significantly more so when it's your own teammate (even if unintentionally 99% of the time) doing it.

Where you go, I can't follow

"Drop the Wall!"

Totems are mechanics that can be deployed to produce various effects in the game. Some examples:

Baptiste's Immortality Field

Illari's Pylon

Soldier's Biotic Field (technically)

Symmetra's Teleporter/Turrets

Barriers

Most of these function quite well, with some allowing for destruction, and thus, interactivity between heroes. Totems play an important role in design, allowing for the detachment of some of a Hero's kit potential, into a separate component; an avatar representative of some of their potency, at the cost of a more simplified (and counterable) interaction or-

Totems can be destroyed, blocked, avoided, or misplaced depending heavily on player interaction and input

But when a Totem possesses collision, the stakes increase to a rather significant degree; there is no longer room for error, as the totem's very existence represents both resistance and obstacle to everyone in the match.

This isn't to say Collision Totems can't be done well?

Mei's Ice Block, for instance, is a fairly balanced and well executed example. The context here is that Mei converts herself into the Totem, removing the potential for the rest of her kit in favour of achieving a more resilient state. That transformation comes at such a significant cost, that the scenarios in which it is useful are isolated, even niche. This gives the ability Texture in a way many other mechanics in the game can't hope to achieve.

And Mei's Ice Block can still severely hamper her own teammates.

Collision Totems need to be handled carefully and the why of it all comes down to a sticky topic where Player Input (or Skill if you want the gameplay translation) is concerned: Precision.

A player's ability to be precise is a huge measure of Player Input, allowing for fantastic gameplay moments, highlights, and unmistakable expressions anyone can recognize-

-but when mechanics like Collision Totems are highly dependent on precision to achieve even nominal success?

You've gone and created a situation in which even just learning the hero, is going to frustrate players. Learning is, by nature, imprecise and the road to minimizing how detrimental your gameplay is on your teammates is going to build an unnecessary level of frustration onto the hero.

There's a reason people referred to Mei as Satan in Overwatch 1.

Broad MMR is filled with people learning; not just the hero they are playing, but heroes they are playing against, and with as well. To climb in ranks, MMR, or just Player Input, you will make a lot of mistakes.

In a game like Overwatch, with a boatload of variance at every level, that learning could take (has taken for many of us) years.

Hazard's Wall represents, not just a Collision Totem, in the same sense as Mei's own Ice Wall, but a super-amped up version of it that multiplies the frustration for all.

I really hate that Mole Hill

It isn't as big as Mei Wall. It isn't as imposing as Mei Wall. It isn't as confusing as Mei Wall (multiple pillars each with their own health pools but no distinct visual effect to represent this before being damaged)-

-but hooooo boy howdy does it do a lot more than Mei Wall ever could!

Persistant knockback on contact

Burst Damage on contact

Anti Mobility on contact (no wall climb)

Omni-placement (not land-locked)

And that's in addition to the standard blockading effects of a Mei Wall. As a Totem, Jagged Wall provides far more impact when on the battlefield against enemies, to the point it can be considered as useful and engaging as a Torb turret, which is to say-

Jagged Wall's effects are broad enough in application that it must be considered in every teamfight at the same level of detriment as powerfully automated totems like Immortality Field and Turrets

Trying to operate outside of that paradigm, makes it very difficult to navigate a teamfight (especially from a Divey Tank with mobility to boot) given it can appear very suddenly to ruin plans, engagements, and retreats.

But that...was sort of the design goal. It's frustrating playing Tank and having an inanimate object counter large portions of your kit, but we've got experience with that. It's a familiar frustration at least.

It's when the Hazard is out ahead or mixing it up with the enemy (as one does when Tanking) and you are attempting any of the following as his teammate:

Healing (him or your fellow teammates diving with him)

Supporting (discords, immo fields, suzus, life grips, etc.)

Tanking (6v6 format makes duo with him a significant gamble)

Finishing off low enemies

Sniping

Trying to navigate narrow corridors or tight confines

Free movement/Mobility in a teamfight

That "appear very suddenly to ruin plans, engagements, and retreats" becomes an unacceptable level of frustration in the design.

A Collision Totem appears, decreeing that the engagement has now changed and/or ended, not because the Hazard was purposefully trying to end it, but because the Wall appeared and blocked off LoS for any number of the possibilities listed above.

Wall takes the agency of your teammates and puts it as a secondary priority to a Tank who cannot afford to look around and take into account the dozens of ways in which his teammates might be trying to leverage their own mechanics, kits, and Roles, to achieve success.

A Hazard is more likely (and well within expectation) to Wall himself off from an enemy trying to kill him when he's low, than rely on the healing from his teammates. It just so happens to, inadvertently, interfere with many of the other possible plans his teammates might have had for engagement purposes.

And, to reiterate, this is less of a problem (but still one) the higher in 'Skill' or Rank one gets, but learning takes time and mistakes happen while you learn, which is a far far closer experience to the vast majority of the Overwatch Playerbase. The fact it's going to cost your teammates their own opportunities too is what makes it bad design.

So what can be done?

Honestly, removing the Wall entirely could yield some really positive results.

I know it's a unique mechanic for the Tank Role (even if not for the game itself), but the isolated potential wrapped up in that Totem could be repurposed towards large portions of his kit, expanding both his mobility, engagement potential, and Texture to make him an ideal Tank.

Without Wall, there's room to increase Violent Leap's versatility, both in the initial Leap as well as the Slash (both of which are separate activations). Increasing his ability to change directions or linger in the air between the two stages of the ability, could significantly refine his engagement potential, while allowing for a stronger knockback the longer he lingers between each stage (and maintaining the counter element of it) or activating Spike Guard briefly to absorb enemy CDs/Burst hits before the slash.

His Wall Climb as well, would benefit from a versatility and potency boost; losing the wall means losing the awkward use of climbing it to reach higher ground...which feels like a waste of the ability where other Tanks with similar mobility can achieve most high grounds just fine off a single CD.

Allowing him to perch on vertical surfaces, or gain further height at the cost of climbing slower, or even resetting the first stage of his Violent Leap at the apex of the climb would all be beneficial to his gameplay.

Give his Spike Guard knockback, for isolation and space-making potential. Heck, allow Spike Guard to add temporary increased Knockback for up to 2s if it damages an enemy.

Give his Ultimate a little extra root time.

Allow Bonespurs to persist on the field for upto 1-2s (this....might be too much for the engine to take, but the idea is still solid theory).

All of it is plausible and clarifies his uniqueness as a Tank-

-if you just. Get Rid. Of the Damned. Wall.

Overall, it's superfluous to the rest of his kit, with very little kit cohesion and can be removed without impacting the rest of his gameplay much at all. It's a bit of bloat that is very easily snipped off in favour of cleaner, adjustable changes that make his gameplay more unique.

And you also get rid of the overly frustrating elements that were never meant to go on a Tank to begin with.