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Fabian Fischer Profile picture
@Ludokultur
Oct 19, 2023 • 9 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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So many of the #gameDesign thoughts I've talked about over the years come together to form something truly beautiful in @wombatstuff's Mosa Lina.

Examples and relevant articles below! 🧵
Mosa Lina focuses 100% on movement. Almost no numbers to think about. Just find ways to use your random tools to traverse space. Touch the fruit, get back to the portal. Very simple, very elegant, but also emergently quite complex!

📜 Article: gamedeveloper.com/design/spatial…
Mosa Lina doesn't use extrinsic rewards. No "meta progression". No achievements. Every time you open it, you’re in the same state you were in every other time. An ode to the intrinsic motivation of play.

📜 Article 1:
📜 Article 2: gamedeveloper.com/business/rewar…
fischerdesign.medium.com/artifact-makes…
"No saves. No progress. Only random."
Mosa Lina has no "reset problem". In fact, just reroll your tools and levels anytime and keep going. Every level, and every attempt at solving it, stands on its own. No need to "ease you in" every run or keep you hooked via RPG-like stats.

📜 Article: gamedeveloper.com/design/the-res…
Mosa Lina does not rely on "phantom depth". It uses reduced audiovisuals to focus on play. While it's very random, there’s no "gambling" in the mechanics. All items are complex verbs interacting with everything. No content for content’s sake.

📜 Article: gamedeveloper.com/business/diagn…
Mosa Lina has no busywork, grind or treadmill of any kind. Start the game and you’re in a random level with random tools solving problems. It's easy to forget how that can actually be enough for a good video game that can stand on its own.

📜 Article: fischerdesign.medium.com/when-games-ido…
Mosa Lina is in line with self-determination theory.
Autonomy: Countless ways to solve situations.
Competence: Go from "wtf impossible?!" to reliably speedrunning 9 levels in 3-5 minutes.
Relatedness: Insanely gif-able (+ a built-in recorder).

📜 Article: gamedeveloper.com/design/why-do-…
Speedrun attempt result - 2:34 minutes for a full 9-level cycle.
Finally, while Mosa Lina is well made and comes in a unique, coherent audiovisual style, its minimalist approach really allows its concept to shine. It unlocks new design space for video games and I'm sure will inspire game creators for years.

📜 Article: fischerdesign.medium.com/games-as-conce…
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More from @Ludokultur

Fabian Fischer Profile picture
Dec 28, 2023
Time to pick my personal games of the year again! As usual, only considering full releases (no "early access"). First things first, here's a list of contenders. Not by any means all the new games I played this year, but the top 30 that were "in the running".

GOTY top 5 below! 🏆 GOTY Contenders Against the Storm, Backpack Hero, Beyond the Long Night, Bing in Wonderland, Boneraiser Minions, Brick Odyssey, Brotato, Chess Survivors, Crop Rotation, Desktop Dungeons: Rewind, Dungeons & Jewels, Endgame of Devil, Football Manager 2024 Mobile, Friends vs Friends, Geo Gods, Laya’s Horizon, Luck be a Landlord, Molecano, Mosa Lina, Mr. Sun’s Hatbox, Paper Planet, PLONG, Qwert, Roboquest, Spellmasons, Storyteller, Tiny Civilization, Trouble Juice, Well Word, Wildfrost
🏆 Backpack Hero by @thejaspel1 🏆
Safe to say this title opened up lots of design space (looking at you @TweetFurcifer), but it's also a great game in its own right with tons of creative mechanics and, more recently, a story mode featuring a Tarkov-like risk vs. reward metagame. Backpack Hero screenshot
🏆 Brotato by @blobfishdev 🏆
The best spawn of the "Vampire Survivors wave" in my book. The game loop alternating between drafting phases and simple (yet non-trivial) action works incredibly well. Builds are nicely granular and flexible instead of following pre-defined recipes. Brotato screenshot
Read 6 tweets
Fabian Fischer Profile picture
Sep 4, 2023
Here's a #gameDesign thought: a #roguelike (run-based game with no meta power progression) emphasizes the competence gain of the player, while a #roguelite (run-based game with meta power progression) emphasizes the competence gain of the avatar.

1/10
More context below! 👇 Rogue Legacy meta progression
2/10
Research based on self-determination theory has previously linked our innate need for competence to the "fun" of playing games.

Here's an article from back in the day (based on the work of @richardmryan3, @csrigby, @ShuhBillSkee): gamedeveloper.com/design/why-do-…
3/10
Both roguelikes and roguelites usually focus on competence as a key motivator. They're supposed to be difficult, you're supposed to "get better" and overcome their challenges. The question is whether "better" relates to player skill and learning or virtual avatar power gain. Vampire Hunters meta
Read 11 tweets
Fabian Fischer Profile picture
May 23, 2023
With many recent Vampire-Survivors-likes relying on emptiness, simple enemy behaviors ("walk towards player") and stats, I feel I should reiterate my stance on "spatiality" in #GameDesign.

Don't just "have space" (instead of flat math), but MEANINGFUL SPACE! 🗺️

⬇️ Examples ⬇️


Vampire Survivors
Heat Signature
Spelunky
Invisible, Inc.
Heat Signature (@Pentadact): Everything revolves around movement. Gadgets swap positions, wind through connected space, teleport, key-clone or disable in a straight-lined shape, slow-down time etc. No number crunching, no "health points" or "damage" or "stats". Voilà, Emergence! In Heat Signature you enter procedurally generated spaceships and, by making use of a diverse set of gadgets, try to reach a specific target object or person. Almost everything in the game is centered on movement. For example, there are multiple types of teleport gadgets that e.g. allow you to swap positions with an enemy ("Swapper"), to instantly move through open corridors and doors ("Sidewinder"), or to jump to any position within a certain radius for a short amount of time ("Visitor"). The "Key Cloner" lets you steal key cards if the guard carryin...
Spelunky (@mossmouth): Bombs open up space, ropes enable upward movement. Most items are about space: jump boots, climbing gloves, jetpack. Enemy behavior is all about shapes: spiders jump, bats fly, mummies vomit into corridors etc. Any combinations are clear, emergent, varied! Bombs allow you to reach sealed off areas or create new connections. Ropes can be used to move upwards, which goes against the natural gravity-based direction the game usually takes. The same is true for climbing gloves and the iconic jetpack that additionally increases your horizontal reach. Jumping boots increase your jumping height. The mattock can manipulate a level's layout. Spike shoes prevent you from sliding over ice blocks. But it is not just the items. The behavior of each enemy and trap in the game has immediate spatial impact and forces you to reconsider how to move. You cannot...
Read 10 tweets
Fabian Fischer Profile picture
Nov 8, 2022
Today I'll talk about my personal #GameDesign and #IndieDev philosophy, specifically these principles: fischergamedesign.com/design-philoso…

I will add example games as screenshots (game names and more details in the alt text if you're interested).

Thread! 🧵👇 The Ludokultur logo in front of a black-and-white image of E
Games I value are all about interactivity. 🎮

I want mechanical challenge (either in a systemic / strategic way or reflex-based) or experiential narrative (i.e. a story you *feel* via mechanics, not one that is told to you). In either case: No wannabe movies! Monster Train is entirely focused on the systemic challenge Celeste is first-and-foremost a precision platformer. While What Remains of Edith Finch tells stories via mechanics. YouThe story of SOMA could not have been told the same way in a
Games I value enrich players' lives. ➕

I want to to experience intrinsically motivated discovery of either systemic insight or narrative meaning. Don't bait me with dishonest "engagement boosters", don't wave shiny-but-empty carrots in front of my face. Braid makes you discover the inner-workings of its time-basePortal is all about placing you in a unique context - a worlInto the Breach is a very "pure" strategy game in Heat Signature does away with "math stuff" almost
Read 12 tweets
Fabian Fischer Profile picture
Sep 13, 2022
Some have called 2022 the year of "microgames". In the wake of @poncle_vampire a host of ~$2 games were created mostly by solo developers or tiny #IndieDev teams in the span of a few months.
Let's talk game dev experimentalism!
🧵👇 1/9 Screenshot of Vampire Survi...Screenshot of Shotgun KingScreenshot of StacklandsScreenshot of Just King
2/9
 The reception, surrounding many of these titles is open, forgiving and appreciative. Turns out if players didn't spend $60 and didn't get hyped up for years of dev time by a faceless corporation, the human side of #GameDev actually shines through sometimes, even on Steam. 4 exemplares Steam reviews:...
3/9
 This in turn opens up #GameDesign space. "Bullet heaven" is a result of flipping a genre on its head: YOU are the bullet hell! Of course there's iteration in microgames too, but the possibility to experiment is real (e.g. @caiysware's "What if your bullets are minions?"). Screenshot of BrotatoScreenshot of Seraph's Last...Screenshot of Boneraiser Mi...Screenshot of Nomad Survival
Read 9 tweets
Fabian Fischer Profile picture
Aug 12, 2022
Always nice to find support for one's #GameDesign thoughts in academia!

This great piece by @dingstweets, @Marc_M_Andersen, @JulianKiverste1 and @PredictiveLife connects to @raphkoster's Theory of Fun and some of my own musings: frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…

Details below! 🧵

1/10 "Mastering uncertainty...
One of the core findings is concerned with players not being as much after success as they are after improvement, i.e. reducing failure or "expected error" or, simply, learning. The more of this they get (per time played), the better.

2/10 A quote from the article: &...
I wrote about this phenomenon here: gamedeveloper.com/design/why-ele…

My thinking back then was based on @Qt3's "Chick Parabola". You traverse phases of competence until you're so good at a game that the additional value (i.e. "error reduction") per time stops being worth it.

3/10 A parabola that initially r...
Read 10 tweets

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