Currently not buying microtransactions in Dragon’s Dogma 2.

Hey Designer,

Welcome to issue #16 of Signposted!

We have a great issue this time around.

• 3 days remain to claim you Signposted Patreon early member reward

• In the SFGD Archives we’re looking at the Stratagem mechanic in Helldivers 1

• The Signposted Community has started their first Game Design resource - a list of questions game designers of a variety of subdisciplines may encounter in interviews

• Dragon’s Dogma 2 has been selected as the next game the Signposted Game Club game will be analyzing

I hope GDC didn’t tire you out because In the best of series, we’ve got some amazing pieces, much of which focusing around GDC and Game Developer:

• Takashi Tezuka and Shiro Mouri explain how the concept ot Mottainai was applied to Super Mario Bros. Wonder

• The Signposted Community chose to feature an analysis on loot in looter shooters

• One of my favorite GDC talks by Jamie Griesemer presents the ripple effect of changing a weapons time between shots from 0.5 to 0.7 seconds in Halo

• Max Pears is back, this time he’s bringing a talk about boss battle levels

• The Game Developer podcast discusses UX and how to apply UX concepts to your game designs

If you enjoy Signposted please be sure to share it so more people can enjoy this content! 😁

We’ve got a massive issue, let’s get into it!

Signposted Design Question of the Issue!

Every week the Signposted community discusses a specific design related question.

"What's a game which you feel is well balanced? What makes it well balanced?"

There’s still time to answer so think about it and once you’ve got your answer let me know what you think.

Signposted Patreon Update!

Only 3 days remain in the early adopter patreon offer! As a thank you for being an early adopter, I'll be mailing all paid members who join at ANY TIER, within the next 3 days (by the 27th of March), a physical Signposted postcard and a handwritten thank you from me.

By joining the Signposted Patreon, you get to be in control. See behind the scenes content, gain additional community voting power, help decide what games I research, topics I write about, and what content makes it into Signposted.

Learn more about and join the patreon via the link below.

Bi-Weekly Analysis and Updates

Recently I started a second newsletter, the SFGD Archive. It takes a fun look at some of my older blog posts and talks a little about my experience as a game designer (or more of trying to navigate the early days of my career). The first issue available at the link below:

Helldivers - Deploying Stratagems

Quick Takeaway:

• After my first layoff I needed a way to make myself stand out and get noticed by hiring managers/designers so I started a blog where I would analyze various games and discuss them.

• One of my first posts was on the Stratagem system of Helldivers

• Helldivers’ Stratagems system works via requiring the player to press specific arrow button combinations to call down weapons, artillery strikes, complete objectives, etc.

  • Think of it like playing DDR with your fingers to call in an airstrike

  • If you get all 5 buttons correct, you get to launch an airstrike

  • If you get 1 wrong, you have to start the entire sequence over

• There are typically used in one of 3 scenarios:

  • At the beginning of the mission, where there isn’t a lot of tension because the players haven’t been discovered yet

  • At the end of a mission when the players are extracting, there is some tension here because waves of enemies are coming at the players, but since they triggered the extraction they were able to dig in and better control the scenario.

  • When you need them most, aka when s**t hits the fan, this is when all your friends are dead, you’re attempting to escape from a hoard of bugs, and you’re trying to do a simple combination of buttons, but due to the already high stress it becomes incredibly difficult

• That tension from the enemies combined with the simple button combinations works so well because it should be easy but the stress from your situation makes it feel 10x harder

Game Design Interview Question Thread

After much discussion with Alexander Rehm regarding game design resources, I charged the community to help me create our first resource. This is a growing thread of questions you may encounter in game design interviews.

If you haven’t already please contribute some questions you’ve encountered in game design interviews in the comments section so we can help other designers.

Current Questions Include:

• Game Design Position

  • What was your most recent eureka moment?

  • If you were tasked with designing a game for a demographic that traditionally doesn't play video games, how would you approach the challenge?

• Economy Design Position

  • When would you use linear, exponential, and logarithmic curves

  • Where do you see the 4X genre going?

  • How would you modify the current monetization plan for X game?

  • You have a resource which is fountaining, how do you stop it

    • Note: fountaining is when players are obtaining a resource more often they they should be.

  • Design a game economy that discourages pay-to-win dynamics while still encouraging in-game purchases.

• Systems Design position

  • If you were designing a mobile match-3 for someone who was blind and deaf, how would you go about doing it?

  • We are your art, programming, and design team. Walk us through how to design X system. (they would ask questions from art/engineering/design perspective as I worked through it)

  • How would you balance a game in which one character can become invincible for a short period, without making this ability feel overpowered or unfair to other players?

• Level Design

  • How do you design a level for a match 3 game? Like specifically what do you take into consideration, what metrics you look into and how do you build it to maximize the engagement?

Discord - Design Chat Event

Last month members of the Signposted Community met up and dissected Helldivers 2. What was meant to only be a one hour chat turned into a two hour deep analysis. We discussed everything from the core loop, to how balance changes affect the game, and more!

Dragons Dogma 2 won the last voting round! We’ll play Dragon’s Dogma 2 over the course of the next month then get together and analyze the good, the bad, and what we think we could improve.

Join the conversation in the discord link below:

The Best of Game Design

This issue we’re focusing a little more heavily on GDC and Game Developer sources since GDC was last week.

The Best of Written

How the Japanese idea of 'Mottainai' shaped Super Mario Bros. Wonder

By Takashi Tezuka, Shiro Mouri, and Chris Kerr

One of the more interesting talks at GDC this year revolved around Super Mario Bros. Wonder and how they applied the profound sense of regret over wastage (or Mottainai in Japanese) to the game. This article discusses a little bit about how they applied the concept to their ideation to come up with the final versions of the wonder effects and badges.

The Signposted Community Choice Award - 🏆

Looter Shooter Devs Still Don't Understand Loot

By Second Wind

In every issue, the Signposted Patreon is given a few media options to vote on for the Signposted Community Choice Award. This issue the community is feeling rather spicy and chose a newer episode of the Design Delve: Looter Shooter Devs Still Don't Understand Loot. It brings up some very good points about extrinsic rewards and it’s a problem systems designers struggle with even to this day. It’s worth a watch in particular if you’re working with heavy amounts of loot in your game.

To vote for the Signposted Community Choice in each issue, join the Signposted Patreon at any tier!

The Best of Video

🏆 Issue #16 Scott’s Pick 🏆- Design in Detail: Changing the Time Between Shots for the Sniper Rifle from 0.5 to 0.7 Seconds for Halo 3

By Jaime Griesemer

As last week was GDC week, I want to highlight one of my favorite GDC talks of all time. In this talk Jaime discusses how making one small change in the time between shots for the sniper rifle had a ripple effect across the game. As someone who works on game balance I preach that game balance matters, quite a bit actually lol.

Level Design Lobby - Designing Boss Battles

By Max Pears

Drawing from his own experience, Max discusses boss battles and what goes into making them. While it is from a level design perspective, he touches on how level design needs to interact with the rest of the design team to create truly unique and special boss battles. It’s helpful for level designers for the obvious reasons, but also for other designers as we’ll understand better what level design needs to do their best work.

The Best of Audio

Game Developer Podcast - Games, Psychology, and UX with Celia Hodent

By Game Developer Staff & Celia Hodent

In this podcast the Game Developer Staff discusses UX with Celia Hodent. They cover what UX is, how it’s different from UI (even though they get lumped together so frequently), and some core tenets of UX game designers can keep an eye out for. I really enjoyed listening to why UX is important in games and thinking about how I can apply some of those learnings from this podcast.

And that’s it for Signposted #16. Thanks for reading!

Scott

Additional Resources:

This section are some additional resources I’m putting together to help out designers at specific pain points in their career. The list will grow with time.

Signposted wouldn’t be possible without the support Patrons. Thank you so much for everyone who reads, shares, or financially supports Signposted.

Signposted Producers

Andreas Lopez

To become a Producer or Sponsor of Signposted, join the Signposted Patreon.

If you enjoy Signposted please be sure to share it so more people can enjoy this content!