Why Every Game Has Combat

a thread with probably unpopular grumbling of a non-violent game designer who's tried and failed to escape making combat-based games many times ok not every game but you know what I mean. theoretically Moon Hunters would be better and more thematically consistent without combat as its central gameplay -- persuasion or cultural exchange or just exploring would be more thematic. beating up random wild animals is weird.

I was asked recently (by @RichardRouseIII no less) what my 'rule of thumb' might be for game design, and I decided my answer is:

Satisfy the player's first impression.

Here's a lil 🧵 on what I mean by this seemingly simple instruction. (1/19) I am using Satisfy here to mean giving a deep fulfillment of an anticipated pleasure. Each word here is operative, but the ones I tripped over for some years were 'deep' and 'anticipated'. I'll explain.

inspired by @TheVTran I'm going to do a quick thread on our Steam backend marketing & visibility stats, to the extent that I can without compromising my business partners. buckle up! every 3 months I update an internal spreadsheet with that period's:
- Impressions (people who saw our game's capsules on the Steam platform)
- Click Through Ratio (CTR)
- Visitors
- Wishlists
- Calculated Visitor-to-Wishlist conversion
Any changes to capsules, tags, etc.

Here's my (shotgun, likely typo-ridden Twitter-style) game design analysis of Crusader Kings III "goal-herding", in which I look a bit at the details and wrinkles of the player experience.
Part 1:

https://twitter.com/tanyaxshort/status/1340756407507927040

Part 2:

https://twitter.com/tanyaxshort/status/1341048277580599296

ok! ok! ok! I loved Breath of the Wild, mostly because I enjoyed just... wandering. Finding koroks, or a bit of environment art I hadn't seen before. I could forget about my goals and truly play, like I did in my neighborhood as a kid. "What's that over there??"

Can't extend threads easily so here's part 2 of an analysis of how "goal-herding" game design works in the sandbox of Crusader Kings 3. Started yesterday here by setting context:

https://twitter.com/tanyaxshort/status/1340756407507927040

Let's continue on to Part 2: the approach and philosophy! (Disclaimer: I have no insider info, this is just based on my analysis as a player.)
The short answer for Crusader Kings III is: progress bars, and an emphasis on the long-term.

As requested, here's a game design analysis thread of how Crusader Kings III goal-herding in a sandbox. Presented in 3 parts, one per day:
1 the problem for context
2 (my impression of) their approach
3 details & wrinkles

store.steampowered.com/app/1158310/Cr… PART 1/3: THE SANDBOX PROBLEM
Most gameplay = working towards a goal. Whether it's "finish the level", "go somewhere","defeat the monster" or "roll the universe into a ball", players need to know what they're /trying/ to do. It's the "why", and usually, games GIVE you the goal.

How to balance an RPG: or, how to not make your game feel completely broken, unless that's how you want it to feel

(a thread) It can be really overwhelming to try to 'balance' a game with lots of Stuff in it, because there's so many elements, and they sort of all relate. Damage, experience, skills, enemies, crafting components, money, cooldowns, etc.

You want this but feel like this

Envy is a real problem, bc it can not only make you feel like crap, it can also prevent you from collaborating and supporting others, or even destroy relationships!

So here's how to deal with it, in my experience as a creator, not a mental health professional. (a quick thread) You can tell you're envious when seeing another indie or their game succeed makes you feel bad. Maybe you feel angry, helpless, ashamed, or just discouraged.

Quick thread on keeping up your (and/or your team's) mental health while making indie games in a pandemic (will expand into a proper article to explain nuances soonTM): 1 Do 1-on-1 meetings w/ each team member every 2-4 weeks. Just chat. See how they're doing. Give space for random anxieties to surface.

Do a 1-on-1 with yourself for 2 mins too! Reflect. How are things? No, really? Identify stressors & worries. Forgive yourself. Be patient.

quick little design thread, analyzing probs w/ the Animal Crossing swimming update:
1 - doesn't allow pursuit of it simultaneously w/ other systems
2 - interrupts/devalues another system (fashion/clothes)

Nintendo designers are tops; so here's why this incoherency happened (1/9) (this is written by someone who has been a live ops/updates designer on 3 different online worlds -- Age of Conan, Secret World, and MUDs... in Age of Conan I led the City Guilds system, on Secret World I led the Albion Theatre)

OK here's a design thread on Cook Serve Delicious 3. I enjoy it for many of the same reasons @xoxogossipgita does... I don't like horror game stress, but I love cooking stress?? So let's look at elements of the design that make that stress so tasty! store.steampowered.com/app/1000030/Co… Context: I played CSD 1 & 2, and use keyboard + mouse. I use hotkeys, but not very skillfully. I enjoy looking at and learning about food, but usually I like cooking systems to be exploratory... I quickly became bored of Cooking Mama, alas. So why did this series stick?

so here's a big hurdle w/ programs to retain experienced marginalized people (i.e. the honeymoon has worn off, they have the skills but need trust, promotions, creative control, etc).... esp when working with corporate partners:

the fixes we know of do not scale up you want to help as many people as possible. so you try to host programs that reach 20, 50, 100 devs...

but from what I've seen, to have real, positive change, you can only focus on helping a few at a time, a handful, and hope there's a ripple effect.

Have employees? Me too! Here's a few small things studio heads can do to make your studio more equitable and comfortable to work for... other than more pay and benefits :) (Feel free to chime in with similar!) 1 when hiring, notify people who didn't get the job.. at the latest, after you've signed the candidate you picked. It feels a little awkward but it doesn't take much time, and saves humans weeks or months of agonizing.

as requested, here's a lil thread with thoughts and observations on how to grow as a game designer, from aspiring to senior, as a salaried game designer for over 10 years. (it's ok if you disagree with me 🌠) 1. starting designers often ask for book recommendations. my first answer is "have you made stuff?" you've probably already read enough blog articles or watched GDC talks, so go make some stuff. it doesn't always have to be finished games. test out ideas. in an engine.

I have a few mins left in my lunchbreak so I'm going to do a quick thread on:

you might be accidentally marketing your indie games to other game devs, pros and cons so, as lead whoever of Kitfox, I've done accidentally marketed basically all of our games to other devs first. why?
- that's my network
- that's who will give me a microphone
- that's the language I speak natively (design/dev)
- I respect them & want them to like me/my work

I'm going to write a quick thread outlining something I think many indies and AAAs alike seem to often understand:

the purpose of project management/production

here we go. At Kitfox, we have teams of 4-5 devs per project. Yet we still make tasks, and estimate them, and assign them, and have milestones every 8-12 weeks.

As an event-runner, I understand it can be frustrating when people say diverse speaker lineups are 'easy', given how it fails to happen so often. So here's some tips. (thread) first take a breath even if you messed up, you're not a "bad person", we're only as bad as the actions we take. so after a mistake, ok, let's learn and take some good actions. :)