#so it's not a game design problem

[sapphire-weapon]

Between PS5 and PC, I probably have close to 500 hours in RE4 Remake, and I platinumed it on PS5 because I pretend the game is good. The truth is that it's a complete and utter betrayal 6/10 at best and is emblematic of everything wrong with modern game design. Capcom wasn't even trying to make a good game. Never EVER do this to someone.

shooting gallery sucks btw

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael Afton knows the FNAF Mimic’s secret..

[britcision]

Indie ttrpg designers

We seem to be back in the “dnd sucks why don’t you just play Other Games (yours)” and I have a single question for you in return

Do I get to roll a d20?

Because I like the d20

That shape pleases me

I do not wish to roll a random amount of d6s or d8s or any of them other fuckers

I wish to roll the d20 because icosahedrons please me

I will also accept d12 but the other shapes all have less mouthfeel so if that’s what your game’s based on, it is not for me

I’d also prefer more than four stats but I’m not gonna lie it is the shape of the math rocks so like

Rec your d20 based indie ttrpgs friends cuz every single one I’ve opened is them little cube fuckers or the double pyramid and I Require Round

[spaghetticat3899]

When you absolutely despise something a lot of people like, and no matter what way you look at it you cannot see the appeal, but you know you can’t talk about it in public or else you’ll get dogpiled to hell and back, so you just kinda sit there frothing at the mouth like this

[flamedoesart]

I feel like people tend to forget that the reason children are on websites they really shouldn't be on, like Twitter for example, is because there are no spaces on the internet anymore specifically designed for children, unless it's for babies or toddlers.

The death of Flash also meant the death of thousands of games and websites specifically designed for the 9-13 demographic. Now granted, several games died long before Flash did (like the Holy Disney MMO trio - Pixie Hollow, ToonTown and Club Penguin) but there were other websites designed around what kids would enjoy. Sites like Kongregate, Sploder, GirlsGoGames and others were designed with kids in mind.

These sites were special in the sense that it gave fun games for children to play without even really needing to interact with other people directly. They could play the games and have fun. If they wanted to make friends they could, and oftentimes these sites had moderation to prevent kids from having full control over what they could say so as to prevent bullying and potential cyberstalking.

But now Flash is dead, and there's barely any hangout spots for that demographic anymore. I think the last remaining game you can play that doesn't require Flash that was a major part of the 2010s game nostalgia was Wizard101, but that game comes with the flaw of membership programs, similar to all the other MMOs that existed at the time.

Needless to say, the next time we ask in annoyance why there's so many 12 year olds on Twitter and Tik Tok, remember that it's because there's literally no online spaces anymore solely for them and only them, that majority of adults wouldn't step foot into anymore.

[phoenixcatch7]

Loz fandom stop being angsty and give the daydreaming kids on big fun adventures with a cool glowing sword some actual whimsy and joy challenge

[anarchopuppy]

"Why did Tears of the Kingdom have a development cycle just as long as Breath of the Wild's even though it reused so many assets?" is a question that I think fundamentally misunderstands how modern game design works

It assumes that the team does something like all sit down, develop the physics engine, then they can move on to the overworld map, then they can move on to making the cutscenes, etc. and when you think about that for just a second it becomes obviously absurd. Developing a physics engine, writing dialogue, creating textures, designing puzzles, and so on are all different disciplines that different specialists work on in parallel and in cooperation

What probably actually happened is a lot of the artists, engine devs, and so on put a lot less time into the project, before/while working on a bunch of different projects at Nintendo (quite possibly including the engine and art for the next Zelda game), and they also probably didn't need to get Monolith Soft to help design the overworld. Meanwhile, the puzzle designers, writers, and a lot of the rest of the team have to do just as much work as they did for Breath of the Wild (or more!), and so it's not that surprising that it took just as long

(Disclaimer that I don't know for certain that this is how it happened internally at Nintendo, and short of interviewing the devs I don't think there's any way to find out. The credits won't help because close to all of the people who moved on to other teams either worked on TotK for part of the development and/or had their work ported over from BotW. This is just my understanding of how modern AAA game development works)

[sonknuxadow]

are people actually mad about the pixel art segments in sonic prime. man literally who cares

[jingerpi]

this was in the replies of a fallout post

which makes sense in context as a lighthearted critique... but I can't help but feel it's accidentally hitting on something more.

it is weird that a massive portion of games which claim to satirize things like fascism, or criticize war, are still played through the central mechanic of Glorious Combat, yeah?

Like, of course fighting in the abstract isn't a problem ideologically speaking (there's plenty of good reasons to fight) but when you're trying to make a point about how bad war is, about how it leads to meaningless violence which should be rejected outright, about how fascism is nonsense and the people it attacks are innocent... you run into some mechanical dissonance when the primary action you take is Shooting people for money/XP/etc, yeah?

games like these (fallout, helldivers, 5e*, etc) run into a weird bit of conflict between their professed ideology/messaging and the fundamental mechanical actions that take place in the game. in these games shooting is supposed to be engaging. it's fun, it's the central mechanic. and yet, the narrative attempts to criticize these things.

while yes, many fascists and liberals alike, will misunderstand the narratives of these games because they're reactionaries, I do think that the games themselves are undercutting their own message in service of Fun Shooting. which, without careful though, will lend itself to more reactionary readings. how do you spend your time telling the player that Killing and Shooting is Bad, while developing a game mechanically to tell the user the opposite?

of course it's possible to make games about shooting where the messaging lines up with the mechanics, or anti fascist games where the mechanics line up with the messaging - disco Elysium makes fascism out to be awful both narratively and mechanically, on the other side, Undertale strengthens you from combat while explicitly making that a bad thing, showing you all the negative effects it has on the world at large.

I do think it is a shame that "FPS", and Killing more generally has in many ways become the default mode of interacting with the world for many game developers and studios. it certainly does not lead to ideologically neutral places and I think it warrants more consideration

[fairmerthefarmer]

Some Exocolonist sketches!! (Is that how people shorten the name of this game? Cause I’m absolutely loving I was a Teenage Exocolonist but dammit it’s a mouthful of a title!)

I’ve done I think four or five playthroughs now? And still loving it, though I don’t know if I’ll be able to stomach purposely trying to get some of the bad endings, even though I know it gets you more lore.

[einsatzzz]

OCtober Day 15: Music - Happy Happy♪ Morning

Master, you're heading out! It shall be a goodbye for a short while. I truly hope you will take care of yourself, please have a nice day today as well! ♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.

She's Rosa, the head of Ninomiya Estate's staff (Namimori branch) and the family's 10th Generation Rain Guardian - a very competent, capable, cool and elegant maid. She's very good at her job because this is exactly her passion in life. It helps even more that her two young masters are very lovable and adorable people 🥰

Whether if it's cleaning up after Kurumi-sama's black matter (after another attempt to practice cooking) or if it's cleaning up after Kana-sama's bloody massacre of corpses (after another mission well done), she's the perfect person for the job! 💪💖 She'll make sure to dispose of any trash for them and to not leave even a single speck of dust.

For Day 15's prompt, I'm linking one of the good vibes songs that's been a regular on my playlist lately. It's a song that perfectly describes Rosa's POV on her work as a maid under Oniyanagi family. If Rossa hears this song in-universe, she will probably make this the staff's main theme song lmao

As for her subordinates, they're still a work-in-progress but I hope to introduce them soon.

She's a very professional person, so she also tries to treat the other guardians well (even if the others can be red flags or assholes). It's just that she tunnel visions on the twins a lot of the time.

Releasing fully detailed profiles for them takes sm time, so I'm just gonna slowly introduce the guardians in snack-size info/posts like these hahaha I'm still tweaking her maid uniform and other parts of her design, I think I can still draw her better. When I'm satisfied, that's when I'll do a full-color illustration of her.

If you're interested in seeing my older arts of her, I got you. This is a Rosa-appreciation post after all 😌😌🥰✨

A Cup of Tea | Cameo in 2024 Yui B-day Art | "Don't bully my master!" | Family Line-up | 2023 Maid Day Art | Cameo in 2023 HNY Art | Cameo in Tomato Song

[ganondoodle]

one of the few zelda youtuber guys that seems to actually love totk made a video about it (i guess bc so many talked about why they dont like it) and while i didnt watch it i took a peek into the comments and of course its full of people going "LMAO people only dislike it bc it didnt validate their crazy theories!!" "its always the same when a new zelda comes out lol at first they hate it and then later its a classic haha idiots" "people who dont like it are just caught up in their nostalgia and cant accept anything new being introduced!!"

also thanking him for "speaking up" about loving the game ... which i find kinda mind boggling bc the internet is full of praise and 10/10s for it

i obviously dont want to villainize people that love totk but like .. these kinds of comments are so unecessarily judgemental? how dare someone NOT like an entry in the franchise and voice legit criticism, how dare someone not worship the game just bc it has zelda on it! CLEARLY they are just made delusional by their own fantasy and will realize later just how wrong they were! hah! those fools!

on my rants there were quite a few people who actually said they like the game but agree with alot of my views on it regardless, it is very flawed but i can also see that the good things outweigh the bad stuff for others, even if i legitimately hate it; but i also had to block multiple people bc they got so butthurt about me criticising it

and i dont think its 100% just an opinion thing either, totk, even when i disregard my personal feelings on the matter, has alot of problems, moreso than the other zeldas (each judged for how it was in their time) and in pretty much every part of the game too (story, lore, continuity, gameplay and rewards, UI-) and i think alot of it stems from its conception, they have never done a true direct sequel before and it came from a DLC idea, and it shows (though i still believe even coming from that you could have done something way better..... bc they also made botw, which seemed to prepare fertile ground for more storytelling that was all discarded for NO reason)

BUT that doesnt mean you cant like it anyway! there are some very horribly shitty games out there that are beloved by people anyway! and thats fine! i love ww and botw, both of which HAVE flaws too! and thats okay!

you dont need to be dismissive of any hint of criticism like that, there is no holy honor to defend, it just makes you look like a jerk

[motherfuckingbrad]

as a female engineering student i am so grateful to have representation like poppy li. too many “woman in stem” characters are, on top of being really smart, also really cool and really pretty but POPPY is a piece of shit, awkward as hell, egotistical little gremlin addicted to candy, power, and validation. she is the smartest person at mythic quest and also the weirdest person you’ve ever met. i love her so much

[kirisclangen]

Zelda

She/her, 65 moons, cis molly

[sluckythewizard]

FORGOT I CAN POST STUFF HERE. HERE, CHECK OUT THESE BEASTS I SCRIBBLED UP A WHILE BACK

[falciesystemessays]

so there's this indie game developer who's been a quiet favorite of mine for the past year. Artless Games. they're a chinese developer who specializes in puzzle games. they have a programming game called A=B about working with an esolang, pretty solid takes on The Witness and Sokoban formulas, and the absolutely ridiculous 14 Minesweeper Variants, which is my comfort game and also getting a sequel soon. this developer is really good at making rock-solid puzzle games with good ideas and great execution. if you are interested in puzzle game design at all, and especially if any of these concepts interest you, i highly recommend you check out their work.

The hitch is, of course, the lack of an artstyle. You could call it minimalist, but the name "Artless Games" shows a full awareness that there's a presentational lack in these games. I kind of admire it, honestly, because these games do stand up without the need for visual flair. And as an indie designer who tends to be pretty limited on assets, I deeply respect a game that shows how you don't need those to make an amazing game.

...But it's not that simple, is it?

A few months ago I went to the yearly Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. I learned a lot there, met a good few people, and started to really rethink how I approach gamedev. The thing to understand about GDC talks is that they are incidentally about making good games. The real focus is on how to be successful in the game industry. This often does mean making better games, but it's just as much about confronting how making a good game isn't always enough.

Enter Lenophie, an aggressively French game designer who gave my most anticipated talk, 'Bunburrows': How to Break Out of the Puzzle Niche. She speaks to the fact that, despite puzzle games being very popular among indie developers, it's a pretty small niche in terms of players. To make a profitable indie puzzle game, you have to appeal outside of that niche to players looking for other things. In Lenophie's words, "We treated being a puzzle game like something we had to compensate for." It means not relying on mechanics alone as a selling point. It means giving your game a unique style, or even a story. And it means swallowing your pride as a puzzle game designer and giving players hints, or even letting them skip puzzles. It's not enough to make a good puzzle game, she says. You have to make a good game with puzzles in it.

I came out of that talk feeling like the future of puzzle games was just laid out before me. And I was excited. I'm still excited! The idea of puzzle games extending past their current niche status is a really cool one, to me. But it puts me in a weird spot thinking about Artless again. On some level, I have a deep respect for a game like 14 Minesweeper Variants, a game with even less interesting visuals than normal Minesweeper, for standing on its own as a puzzle game. It was a game built just for me. I think it's really important that games like this exist, that game developers can make a game with a sharp focus that knows its audience and appeals to it fully. But the reality of gamedev as a business complicates matters. I hope every developer working in the puzzle space finds their answer. I hope I find mine. And I hope you, whatever rising star developer is reading this, find your balance.