Still having a great time with: Starfield

Hey Designer,

Welcome to issue #9 of Signposted!

In this issue we’re talking about an alternative to gacha boxes, the rotating store.

In the best of series, we’ve got some amazing pieces:

• Emily Short discusses ways she’s one upped the traditional narrative options.

• Ketul Majmudar (Prev: God of War: Ragnarök) breaks down how he would build a challenge dungeon in Shadow of the Tomb Raider

• AlexG breaks down Alan Wake’s masterclass in story telling via level design

• In my pick of the issue, Cadence Hira dives DEEP into the sound design of Super Mario Bros. Wonder

• Andy “Bravo” Dudynsky reminisces about the design of various aspects of Halo 2 with some of the original designers and docs

In this issue’s poll I’m asking for your two cents on expanding into youtube.

And a final note, if you enjoy Signposted please be sure to share it so more people can enjoy this content! 😁

Thanks and let’s get into it!

Bi-Weekly Analysis

The Fall of Gacha Boxes and the Rise of the Gacha Store

By Scott Fine

Gacha is a controversial mechanic, and some countries have restricted its use. But the games industry moves faster than legislation and less abrasive alternatives are being tested out. One such is the rotating store, or as I like to call it, the “gacha store”. Let’s talk about how it works.

As per usual after the link to the full article with extra images and context, is a quick breakdown of the most important points.

Quick Takeaway:

• Gacha boxes are notorious for being incredibly volatile

  • An alternative is the rotating “gacha” store

• A typical gacha box functions like this:

  • A player put in currency

  • They get a random item from a selection of possible items out

• The gacha store on the other hand

  • The player views the store’s inventory

  • They can choose which item they wish to purchase

  • Inventory typically rotates every 24 hours

  • They can spend to “refresh” the store inventory

    • The inventory is randomly selected from a pool of different items, thus the gacha store

  

  My store before I refreshed

  

  my store after I refreshed

• This circumvents a lot of the problems players have with gacha because they are shown what they are purchasing before purchasing it

  • If players want to still pull for chances at better inventory they can

  • They’re paying for a “store refresh” rather than a “chance to pull the carrot character” it feels less bad

  • As the player refreshes, the price goes up to refresh

    • Every 2 refreshes within a 24 hour window the price goes up

    • This helps to mitigate players from spending their way to the top or grinding out the specific character they want

    • While the player is spending less per purchase in refreshing, then purchasing the shards, than something like an offer, if the player wants to unlock the character the price becomes much higher than an offer.

      • (See the breakdown in the full post)

• If this is very similar to a gacha box then why doesn’t it take any heat?

  • It’s because I can see a set of options in the store before purchasing, I don’t need to spend for the chance to get shards for a carrot character.

    • I only need to spend if I want additional shards, so free players are still making progress even without spending which feels great!

      • Note: remember whales don’t typically have a problem with Gacha, it’s the dolphins and free players who really struggle and quit because they don’t feel like they’re making meaningful progress

• For a final comparison let’s take a quick look at how much a player spends in Strike Force to unlock a character from each source:

  • For the rotating store, users pay at least $80 for the single character unlock.

  • For the gacha, users pay roughly $45 for the single character unlock.

  • For the offers, users pay $30 for the character unlock. 

  • For the multi character offers, users pay $20-$25 for multiple character unlocks.

• More money for the developer and a better experience for the player feels like a win win

• For a deeper dive with a lot more math, check out the full article

This Issue’s Community Question

The Best of Game Design

The Best of Written

Dialogue Expressiveness in Mask of the Rose

By Emily Short

Emily short is a Creative Director at Failbetter Games and runs one of, if not the top narrative design focused blog. In this article she dives deep into the unique dialogue systems she used in Mask of the Rose. It’s fascinating because she goes into detail about how to make a character’s personality-characterizing options not be as rigid as other narrative games, but more appropriate for the character. Additionally she outlines the team’s “murderboard” mechanic and addresses some of the challenges which affect such a system.

Level design breakdown: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

By Ketul Majmudar

Ketul is a game designer at Meta, previously he worked on God of War: Ragnorok. In this post he discusses the level design of the challenge dungeons in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and walks the reader through his process of designing one from inception until the block out phase. I enjoyed his article, and seeing him break down the level into bite sized steps really makes it approachable.

The Best of Video

Master Class in Level Design Story Telling - 6 Secrets I Learned from Playing “Alan Wake”

By AlexG

In this video Alex breaks down 6 level based story telling secrets he noticed in Alan Wake. I’m always telling people that there’s a lot of gray area in game design and this is no exception, the blend of narrative and level design helps make Alan Wake a strong and memorable experience.

🏆 Issue #9 Scott’s Pick 🏆 - The SECRET of Super Mario Wonder's Sound

By Cadence Hira

Cadence Hira dives DEEP into the audio design of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. She discusses interactive layering and multiple variations on how Nintendo achieved this seamless audio experience across multiple Mario games. I have a soft spot for games which go to this length to make the audio so important to the experience.

The Best of Audio

Halo 2 Artifacts - Mini Series

By Andy “Bravo” Dudynsky

Technically I’m cheating this issue, as this is a mini series rather than a single episode. The original Halo trilogy is near and dear to my heart. In this series, Andy interviews a couple developers who worked on Halo 2 Multiplayer. Throughout this series they discuss various designs from map design, to game modes, to social systems, and even some cut designs. It’s fascinating to hear about the process of designing the various aspects of the multiplayer and the stories behind the legend. Don’t worry if you’ve never played Halo 2 though, as most of the designs are still being used in some capacity on modern Halo games.

• Episode 1 - Game Modes, background, and general design

• Episode 2 - Online and social systems

• Episode 3 - Map Design

• Episode 4 - Designs which got cut

And that’s it for Signposted #9. Thanks for reading!

Scott

If you find a typo in the newsletter, please reply to shame me into improving my editing skills