Thread by @Zetoveraleenzet

1. It's great seeing node projects steer away from node-only utility by creating P2E games like @GodsofAsgardP2E.

But how hard is designing P2E games?

In my coming #P2E threads I'll answer that question so you're prepped for getting most out of the 2nd play-to-earn cycle.

🧵

2. Creating #P2E games is a massively hard job.

Why? To create, launch and run successful games you have to overcome difficult challenges.

3. Challenges P2E games face are threefold:

▶️ Game design is a balanced craft not easy to apply
▶️ Tokenomic models for games are complex
▶️ A highly competitive landscape across multiple blockchains

In the 1th thread of my P2E series I'll focus on game design.

4. What is game design?

Game creation is the art of balancing out a set of four components. Together they form systems of gameplay that provide players with:

▶️ Strategies
▶️ Decision-making options
▶️ In-game economies
▶️ Interactions guiding players towards victory.

5. Let’s zoom in on the four components of designing addictive and fun games:

1⃣ The Core Loop Play
2⃣ The Triple Rs
3⃣ Player Interactions
4⃣ Player Experiences

6. The core loop play in games is a set of default actions players have that recur every turn, resulting in decision-making processes and strategies for winning the game:

1⃣ Action
2⃣ Outcome
3⃣ New Options

Fairly simple concept to understand right?

7. The core loop plays must be easy to grasp in a few sentences. Many #P2E games have this core loop play:

Use your #NFT character to fight other players/ the environment, get rewarded or penalised for and breed new characters or update existing characters for better stats.

8. A simplified version of Axie's Infinity core loop play looks like this.

9. Designing a functional core loop play is fundamental for #P2E developers. If it’s intuitive and players understand it they give playing the game a shot.

If core loop play sucks, adoption sucks meaning time spend in game is zero.

10. Nailing the core loop play isn’t simple tough.

Recurring actions that players have result in a decision making process based on factors such as:

▶️ Rules, rewards and available resources
▶️ Player and environment interactions
▶️ Player experience

11. Time and resources spend in game are the two metrics that matter most especially for #P2E games that have inflationary token mechanisms, which most have.

That’s a topic for the next thread.

12. The second component of game design is “the Triple Rs”

Triple Rs stands for:

1⃣ Rules
2⃣ Resources
3⃣ Rewards

These are mostly deterministic game ingredients that help players understand how to play games.

13. Rules:

Rules provide frames for playing the game. Think of how players can win games, the quantity and stock to flow ratio of resources and what players can or can’t do while playing games.

14. Resources:

Inventory of games such as #NFTs, items, stock, time, currencies and collectables that players need to:

▶️ Upgrade or breed characters
▶️ Construct buildings
▶️ Unlock achievements
▶️ Collect to win points
▶️ As a medium of exchange
▶️ Etc, etc

15. Rewards & Penalties:

The amount of resources the game rewards or slashes players with while playing the game.

Rewards and penalties incentivise risk taking, strategy forming and decision making.

16. The Triple R component determines how the game rewards or penalises players for their choices of interactions.

That brings us to the third component

17. Player Interactions:

Good games offer players varieties of options for having interactions with players and environments. Good game design must take care of frustrating players during these interactions so outcomes can't be taken for granted.

18. This makes designing “player interactions” a game of probabilities that enable players to create strategies, decision-making and consider risk-rewards ratio’s.

19. Designing interactions is the art of creating fundamental tension between players, environment and resources. Essentially the main question game developers have to ask is:

“How do in-game interactions frustrate or reward players”.

20. In-game interactions must frustrate a player to a point where dopamine kicks when the game rewards the player for overcoming challenges and taking risk.

That’s when it’s addictive, that’s what increases retention rates, that’s what drives revenue streams.

21. Finding equilibrium between frustrating and rewarding players is the honeypot game developers look for.

The right balance makes games:

▶️ Dynamic
▶️ Challenging for players to test different strategies
▶️ Forces them to evaluate their decision-making process.

22. That brings us to the fourth mechanism: player experience.

Player experience is what #P2E criticaster call fun and is a measure for player engagement. Creating addictive player experiences is the sum of three variables:

1⃣ Growth
2⃣ Difficulty
3⃣ Depth

23. Growth:

Game play must be adjusted to the level of skills and knowledge gamers have at any given moment when they play the game. The complexity level of the game must match the level of experience of the gamer.

24. Difficulty:

That’s why difficulty of rules, quests, game-play and strategies must not be too high for new players but also not too low for experienced users. This is part of finding equilibrium between frustrating and rewarding players.

25. Depth:

To keep players engaged (time spent in game) a game must have different layers of difficulty and growth. It’s the sum of all layers in a game that enable players to discover and test new strategies and decision making processes for playing and winning a game.

26. As you might begin to understand designing games is a difficult craft of balancing out a set of deterministic variables and probabilities incentivising players with in-game rewards and economies.

27. Adding blockchain to that equitation.. well it doesn’t make it any easier and opens up a whole new set of challenges. I’ll dive into those challenges in my next threads.

28. For now I want you to remember that good game design is the sum of these four parts. Keep these in mind when you analyse a #P2E project.

29. Let’s finish this thread with plotting the four components of game design on the highly anticipated #P2E game @GodsofAsgardP2E based on what we know from the medium articles.

https://twitter.com/GodsofAsgardP2E/status/1499773237298753541?s=20&t=6tgY_JwtPOe-S-FNUTkH8Q

30. The core loop play of Gods Of Asgard:

Battle enemies and survive to get rewarded with items, new #NFTS and native in-game tokens so you can breed new characters or upgrade existing characters.

31. Rules, Resources and Rewards of Gods Of Asgard:

Rules:

▶️ Only if you end up having a top 3 placement you earn yield
▶️ First place earns maximum yield
▶️ Fighting is not allowed outside the fight zone
▶️ Enemies are stronger in the winter area

32. Resources:

▶️ Potions
▶️ Artefacts
▶️ Food
▶️ NFT characters with various rarity scores
▶️ Combat attributes
▶️ In-game tokens

33. Rewards:

▶️ Yield for winning battles
▶️ Temporary rewards (potions)
▶️ Restored health (food)
▶️ Upgraded characters stats (potions)

34. Player Interactions:

It's hard to see what interactions players will have in Gods of Asgard but reading medium articles point towards:

▶️ Combat with non playable characters
▶️ Hunt for food to increase/ restore health
▶️ Combat other players (future)

35. Outcomes of these player interactions are programmed probabilities for winning or losing. This might make Gods of Asgard a repetitive game with few profound layers for strategy forming and decision making.

To be clear: this is an observation, not a judgement.

36. Player experiences (assumptions):

▶️ Growth will be a result of increased stats and items of characters.

▶️ Difficulty will be stats of the enemy and unlocking challenges

▶️ Depth is harder to judge, my assumption is that depth will not be the strongest part of the game

37. Is that bad? That depends. Most #GameFi projects focus on investors, not gamers.

Problem is that when there’s only earn, there’s no play and when there’s no play there’s no earn. This could be harmful for in-game economies.

38. These are #P2E dilemma’s I’ll cover in next threads. Your Twitter attention span has been stretch out enough! Well done if you've made it this far.

39. Topics I’ll cover in the next threads are:

▶️ How do #P2E projects make money?
▶️ Tokenomic models for games
▶️ What blockchains have #GameFi momentum

40. That't it! If you liked it:

Follow me @Zetoveraleenzet for more.

Like/Retweet the first tweet below if you can:

End.

https://twitter.com/Zetoveraleenzet/status/1514979023436222466

41. You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: typefully.com/Zetoveraleenze…