What is recent tendency of Game Design?

[RockoDyne]

@hippocoder

4. a game must cruelly kill you again and again, with no tutorials and no remorse.

(my point being that success isn’t what you wrote, for a large amount of games, not least dark souls / grinding mmos)

The whole procedural death labyrinths genre is definitely big with the kids theses days.

[tedthebug]

Some games are affected by our expectations going in. If we are expecting a game to only be meh & it is what we would normally consider a good game we will likely convince ourselves that it was really good simply because it was better than that initial expectation. This is probably why a lot of AAA games are trashed or considered meh, they have raised our expectations so high that once we actually get into the game it can’t meet those expectations even if they actually delivered what they said they would.

Under promise, over deliver. It works for business & probably works for games as well.

[Schneider21]

@tedthebug

This is probably why a lot of AAA games are trashed or considered meh, they have raised our expectations so high that once we actually get into the game it can’t meet those expectations even if they actually delivered what they said they would.

The earliest example of this I really remember was Fable.

The game was so overhyped by poor Mr. Molyneaux, and fans were so willing to buy into it that the game was doomed to be ripped to shreds right from the start. The final product is a perfectly serviceable game, and is even quite good in some regards. But (being among the sheep) I can’t ever look at it without feeling disappointment. I’ve since learned to strictly curb my expectations for games and to only take marketing pitches with a fistful of salt, but those old habits are always wanting to show their faces again.

@tedthebug

Under promise, over deliver. It works for business & probably works for games as well.

This is very difficult for indie devs, I imagine, as the only way to even make your game relevant is to convince people it’s worth their money, and to do so, you have to hype it a bit. It’s a dangerous line to walk, but one you have to do unless you rely entirely on word-of-mouth to get you sales, which can’t be a super effective strategy.

[leegod]

So here is danger at game making. Innovative game looks good and attracting, but maker can’t know if that game is fun or not until complete. So most game start with existing games, to there add their own uniqueness if possible. If maker have plenty of time and resources, they can make prototype and find it will be fun or not, but most indie can’t have that. Prototyping also requires time = money. But wrong game design and wrong direction result more destructive result. At the same time, game should be attract many reviewer’s attention for free spontaneous advertisement, it is getting more harder about what final game shape should be.

So make it harder is because of concern about result, money. If maker can abandon this problem, he can purely concentrate only on game itself, and even if no money returns, maker himself should be fun when himself play his game. How can other people feel fun even maker himself does not feel fun?

[Gigiwoo]

@leegod

So here is danger at game making. Innovative game looks good and attracting, but maker can’t know if that game is fun or not until complete. So most game start with existing games, to there add their own uniqueness if possible. If maker have plenty of time and resources, they can make prototype and find it will be fun or not, but most indie can’t have that.

Why not? I’ve made prototypes of every product I ever made, professional and Indie. Blizzard can say the same thing. There’s NO reason an Indie can’t prototype to find the fun. In fact, if they aren’t doing that, they will almost surely fail. I feel strongly about this**!!!**

Gigi

[Kiwasi]

@leegod

So here is danger at game making. Innovative game looks good and attracting, but maker can’t know if that game is fun or not until complete. So most game start with existing games, to there add their own uniqueness if possible. If maker have plenty of time and resources, they can make prototype and find it will be fun or not, but most indie can’t have that. Prototyping also requires time = money.

I’m with gigi on this one. Indies can only survive because they are innovative. And a big part of innovation is testing and discarding lots of ideas. You should aim to fail fast. Build prototypes quickly, with the intention that any that are not fun get culled quickly.

Sure there is a time cost associated with building a prototype, especially if the prototype is scrapped. But its less then the cost of building an entire game and then scrapping it.