Introduction This is part 10 of an ongoing game design document written as a blog. Be sure to catch up on previous posts. In the last installment, we talked about the use of stub mechanics and how they can be used to create a simple combat system. This time we’ll apply some additional stub mechanics and learn an important lesson about iterative game design. First Post: Introduction Previous Post: Simple Combat Starting the game and […]
Introduction This is part 9 of an ongoing game design document written as a blog. Be sure to catch up on previous posts. In the last installment, we talked about ships and the various systems involved with movement and stacking. This time we’ll talk about combat and the joys of stub mechanics. First Post: Introduction Previous Post: Ships Combat I’m scared to design the combat system in SpaceCrack. All the actions we’ve built up so […]
Introduction This is part 8 of an ongoing game design document written as a blog. Be sure to catch up on previous posts. In the last installment, we extend the concept of player-created environments with the notion of territories. This time we’ll talk about ship tokens and try to solve some of the major issues associated with complex unit management in turn-based strategy games. First Post: Introduction Previous Post: Using Planets to Build Territories Space […]
Introduction This part 6 of an ongoing game design document written as a blog. Be sure to catch up on previous posts. In the last post we talked about using expressive verbs as the model for player actions. This time we’ll talk about the need for a game environment that provides a large set of unique and interesting context for each player action. First Post: Introduction Previous Post: Verbs I’m going to pull another design […]
Introduction This part 5 of an ongoing game design document written as a blog. Be sure to catch up on previous posts. In the last installment, we made a quick inventory of all the pieces in the game. This time we’ll dig into the part of the game that matters most to first time players, the things they can do. First Post: Introduction Previous Post: Building a gameplay parts list Expressive Verbs: A theoretical underpinning […]
Document Note: Games are complicated. This ‘small’ design will be 20+ pages by the time I’m done and most designs run into the hundreds of pages. This post compresses the entire design into a single page. Game design can become horribly abstract and it helps to have a complete (if simplified) vision of the gameplay in your head before delving to each area. Introduction This part 4 of an ongoing game design document written as […]
