Tyler & Tyler

Current ideas: How Arvi Teikari designs a puzzle, The genius of Hollow knight’s “soul meter”, The enemy design of The binding of isaac (the gameplay elements),The information horizon of tactics games, achievement design in games,

1 Intro to indie game design

-more experimental

-goal is more just for fun than printing money

-there is more variety in gameplay

-They can be as intuitive as they want, not having to appeal to a vast majority of people

-don't have to teach mechanics using obligatory tutorial windows, instead using gameplay

-developers are more open to feedback

-content updates are generally free

-Game is complete without dlc

-More focused

-AAA industry is counter intuitive- games mostly made for people who have never played a game before

-kickstarter lets games like hollow knight exist

CONS

-Less budget

-Very limited team size

-development time is significantly longer (whens silksong)

-less graphical potential

-very specific target audience

-Inaccessible for most people due to niche mechanics or sheer difficulty

-Less playtesting

-design is seemingly counterintuitive- roguelikes

-almost always requires previous experience from other games

-kickstarter rip-offs (day of dragons and the like)

2 How spelunky 2 expands on the original’s decision making

-Very systemic, all wood catch fire, think botw, all systems interact

-A game about decisions, but some metas overrule like paste+shotgun+jetpack

-knockback system, limited iframes

-everything is turned into a decision, presenting more interesting gameplay

-Creates interesting decisions, Jetpack v.s Vlad's cape

-Interaction with cape and kapala

-Interaction with jetpack and fire

- dynamic fluids, forces rethink of liquids, bombing the base of a lava pool is now a bad idea

- Mounts like the turkeys add more options, though it mainly degenerates to bomb the two in dwelling and then being forced to ditch quilin, bit of a letdown, would have preferred to keep him, he only has 4 health so its not that op

-cosmic ocean is bland but actually encourages visiting the temple for alien compass and elixir

-eggplant creates tension as low chance to actually start a run

- clone gun creates options, clone kali sacrifice or resource pack in sunken city

- elixir helps in CO but you cant get clone gun but allows you to get alien compass

Jungle vs volcana

-Jungle presents more tactical gameplay, no forced movement by environment

-Paste good but witch doctors horrible

-Volcana is more hectic, insta-kill fluid dynamics conveyor belts and explosions, but guaranteed mobillity

Temple vs tidepool

-Tidepool ez and has a clone gun

-Temple hard, no clone gun but elixir and alien compass

-shopkeeps actually have a dynamic sin value rather than a binary docile or hunt phase

-eventually they make kill camps to balance the item gain from stealing, provoking more interesting decision making

-theft can be redeemed if sin value reaches 0, allowing redemption, adding options

3 The interesting logic of difficult games (like dark souls, cuphead, hollow knight, isaac repentance and spelunky)

-High difficulty significantly reduces target audience, seemingly counterintuitive as the objective is to sell a product to as many people as possible

-However, it is the draw to said limited target audience

-an odd occurrence in the marketing of a game is that sometimes they market themselves, lets plays on youtube and such

-and in that, people enjoy said people struggle on a difficult game, gaining it more attention

-However, it leads to controversy, causing some to lean away from said game

-But that gains the attention of people wanting a challenge and bragging rights

-Its like a positive feedback loop

-Ultimately, games are designed to bring about some form of tension, requiring difficulty

-the more games you play, the better you get and you start to move out of that goldilocks zone of tension in most games

-thats where the appeal of difficult games lie for me

-But something interesting happens when it comes to sequels, namely isaac and spelunky

-in order to make a sequel, it must be harder than the original, further limiting the target audience

-creating an interesting divide in the fanbase, as some stick to the original with a passion

- this divide can be seen in the steam reviews for spelunky 2 and isaac repentance (repentance is a DLC but basically a sequel with the amount of content and balance updates)

-But from the developer’s perspective, they’re just expanding on the fundamentals of the main game, difficulty included

-but what if a developer goes the other way, responding to the most common feedback and making an easier sequel?

-then another divide is formed, as can be seen in the monster hunter series, as the games became easier as the series progressed

-im relatively new to said series, starting in rise, the latest installment

-but from what i can get, is that the difficulty has been constantly changing

-this seems to be due to the same enemies being used across all the games, so hypothetically, the first one you play will be the most difficult

-but there was another interesting installment, world

- this one changed the series in a lot of ways, but my point right now is that it made it more accessible

-and rise made a return of sorts, though i think its more of a blend, to the original formula

-so everyone's views on the progression of the franchise are skewed

-difficulty is an odd subject though, as it is subjective to everyone

- but from my perspective, as someone who finds the fun through conquering a challenge, I hope that this niche kind of game design philosophy stays around.