Game Design

Diablo: Immortal and Aesthetic Gacha-ism

  Nobody defending the game seems to understand why the monetization is bad. Governments aren’t banning this game because they care about p2w or competition. Its being banned because its literally dangerous and predatory. from DiabloImmortal Above is a reddit post complaining about the moral and ethical problems with gacha games. This is very valid …

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Randomness, and “Random Value Absorption Thresholds”

Randomness is very important in game design! This is because randomness allows us to make the game state larger and more complex, without overwhelming the player with too much information and therefore calculation. I’ve been writing about randomness for over a decade at this point, but this article represents my latest, most updated views on …

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“Handicaps”, “Balanced Difficulty” and the one-player perspective

Did you know that the origin of the word “handicap” is “cap in hand”, thereby suggesting a connection between disabled people (who in the past had been referred to often as “handicapped”) and street beggars/panhandlers? 😬 It definitely seems worth moving on from this term and using another term in its place. While we’re at …

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Asymmetry and Holistic Design

Over the years, I’ve had some trouble expressing my point of view about pre-game asymmetric choices (characters, factions, etc) in games. Back in 2013 I wrote “Debunking Asymmetry“, which was my most clumsy attempt, and which awarded me over 100 comments, from notable game designers like Naomi Clark, Raph Koster, Greg Costikyan, Jon Schafer and …

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