[SOLVED] Any tips on game design?

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

Does anyone have any tips on advanced game design, and some important principals that a succesful game must follow? I’m not well versed in this, and it would we very useful to know! I’ve tried to learn, but I’ve had trouble figuring out some key principals to follow, mostly on how to make a game fun.

Thanks!

~ NinjaFactory

1 Like
#2

When it comes to game design, there are a ton of topics to cover, but you can’t really call on anything until you bring up a topic, if that makes sense. Different genres or feelings you want your game to have will bring up different things.

If you want to reach a wide audience, you’d generally want a low barrier to entry. What’s your audience? Who do you want to reach? I personally believe in cosmetic-based systems over pay-to-win. Ethical monetization. It might not pay the bills at times and so maybe you favor that, money.

When you add something into a game, think about what it, well, adds. Adding a double jump into a platformer opens some opportunities. Will the double jump be used to make platforming easier or will it be used as a requirement or a challenge. Maybe all three of those. Tons of games in the general platforming genre have double jumping and so you could get thrown into a stigma, or maybe people will be happy and love you for having double jumping.

If you have coins in a 3D Platformer Collect-a-thon, you can use them to guide the player instead of placing them randomly. A lives system is viewed as a relic from the past, outdated game design. What can you do to fix it? Mario Odyssey makes the player lose 10 coins on death, and they are littered everywhere, so dying isn’t as annoying in most cases. The coins can also be used to buy cosmetics. Make things in your game have multiple uses. Think, what does this add to my game and to the players experience?

If a boss fight is ‘challenging’ because it’s a damage sponge, then that’s objectively bad game design. Water levels with janky controls = bad level design. Use that opportunity and learn from past games.

I recommend these YouTubers if you want to learn more about game design:

Thanks looking at this ramble on game design. If you have any questions regarding a specific genre or something, I could throw back what I know. :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#3

Thanks for taking your time to write this huge reply! Could you look at this game, see what genre it would fit in, and identify any bad game design areas?

The game: Maze Craze 🎮 [GAMEMODES!] - Roblox

Thanks!

1 Like
#4

Notes:

  • The UI design is inconsistent and hard to read at times. I’d imagine the UI was made with mobile in mind, but I could be wrong.
  • The Settings menu can only be accessed from the main menu. This was somewhat annoying throughout my experience playing the game. There should be a settings menu that pops up, not attached to the main menu.
  • Some parts of the world didn’t seem to load when wondering around, harsh end points at a cliff.
  • Constant print statements were visible when opening the dev console with F9. This could’ve contributed to the lag I was facing at times, but could very well be my potato of a computer I’m currently using.
  • The most annoying thing was when I’d load into a game, or at least the transition screen would pop up, when I had AFK on. If the player is AFK, I don’t think they should get the pop up for the match starting.
  • More of a focus on gameplay, it felt fun at times. The game would probably be more fun with more players as I played alone, but it was confusing at times as to what I should do. Some walls at times appeared/disappeared.
  • The scaling of the prices for currency is an interesting idea, but not one I like. I feel that everyone should pay and get the same.
  • Along the lines of currency, I’m not Premium so I didn’t test out those rewards. I also found the shop not too appealing, but maybe that’s mainly due to the UI design.

I recorded myself playing the game, might be cool seeing my perspective in video form: (YouTube has a 2x speed option, I’d use that, lol.)

(sorry for the quality, didn’t realize OBS was recording at that.)

1 Like
#5

Thanks for all that feedback and the video(I watched the entire thing)!

I agree with all feedback, but could you be more clear with this one:

How could we improve the UI design of the shop then?

1 Like
#6

image

Red - The UI Corners are inconsistent. (the skin/item icons too)
Blue - Small text, hard to read, awkward formatting in general. Lack of text hierarchy.
Pink - The button is quite small as well as having the UI corner consistency issue

The UI in general could be bigger as well and I feel the background of some of these could be better. (a darker background?)

You could change ‘Purchase’ to ‘Buy’ for a smaller alternative that means the same thing.

1 Like
#7

Ok! Also, how could we make it so that the game is clearer?

#8

Fixed some UI issues, along with some of the other issues you mentioned! Hope they brought upon meaningful change. I’ll address the other ones later.

#9

A little confused, by “clearer” you mean as in telling players what to do?

Thinking about it, I feel it does a good job explaining what to do when the Golem is present. I know I need to run away from the golem due to messages on the screen, a red light, and other visual bits. Collect coins is a simple concept, dodging obstacles too. When there is no Golem however, what is the objective? Get to the yellow ‘win’ area?

Oh, a slight cutscene to what you opened with a lever or whatever could be helpful. I wasn’t sure what switch or button opened what sometimes.

1 Like
#10

This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.