Robert Wolf Game Design Notes

 For some game mechanics being put together just feeling wrong for how they're used and why. An example being the traditional use a mouse style upgrade system in a tower defense game. Some ideas don't combine and mix all that well while others do mix and combine better than others.

 When you want the player to do x by having small benefiting factors that lead up to the result you want will get the player to do more of what you want. By making a small factor that builds up into something big like in Neon White shooting a bullet provides a small speed boost. However since it's a small factor you think nothing of it until you realize all of the small boost from said speed build up into something of a meaningful advantage. The same goes for other game genres where you need x or y to be leading for the carrot as of where you want the player to go. You want the player to pick up junk? Make it where the player has a purpose for said junk. You want the player to avoid getting shot? You make game mechanics that benefit the player the more HP they have. You want the player to land more shots? You create game mechanics that encourage the player to chain shots together. Keep in mind the balance will change the more you do this and the more game mechanics that provide sai...

Game pitch Deadline  - 1 week the 30TH Genre  - Arcade Rogue-Like RPG  Gameplay Goal 1 - Wave combat system 2 - Bullet hell 3  - Difficult 4 - Addictive 5 - platforming Goals Player chooses weapon (start with two choices) Add a shield system random level generated parts (ie. not entire generation of levels but varied designs of the levels) Shield regen system (must hit shots on the enemy to regen your shield) Energy system Move delay (mal) Kill streak (drops if hit) kill streak score boost More than one level Completed Game mechanics Left & Right (release, pressed, held, etc) 1 - movement 2 - move excel 3 - pivot (i.e.. you don't lose speed right away from the excel of your tank but have a single frame window to keep said speed) 4 - letting go of one direction will cause a breaking effect 5 - pressing the opposite direction from the tank being moved that the tank speeds up breaking 6  - breaking reset if pressed the same direction of the moving tank 7 - movi...

Inspired by Dice Throne, changing it to a dice resource management game. Dice rules; you have total number of dice to roll being 14 ATK dice for dealing dmg DEF dice for sacking to defend Ability dice to be used for abilities  Energy dice to be used for energy gain Dice abilities / classes to use Unless shown on the stat cards, all classes start with 40 HP You start with 5 cards in hand, you may discard a card to gain an energy, each class has a D6 for an energy dice, roll higher than the current energy to gain 1 additional energy, if not then you're SOL. All classes have a max amount of energy gained by discard to them, on average it's a max of 2 not counting overload energy. Once decked out you shuffle your deck and draw a card If an attack dice are overwhelmed by defense dice that's known as a parry, that knocks the opponent off balance for -1 DEF dice modifier for each die that rolled higher than an opponents dice. It's die versus die and a total system, meaning hav...

 Rules changes being made to a game or a sport not just for the sake of balance which would be the logical action but the rule changes for the use of what is fun to watch. This is far different than one would think a game like this would be played, however this kind of system makes sense; you're focused on making x into a sport then y result for the action must be taken. The casual level of play must be made different than the pro level of play because what is fun to watch is not the same as what is fun to play. People will also optimize the fun out of a game trying to get every little advantage possible as thus forcing rules to be introduced that would force people to make things balanced instead of the nightmare of a mess it is today. The pros desire to win and the audience desire a fun watch, both of which are at odds with each other some of the time. What is the most optimal path for winning isn't the same as what is the most fun to watch.

 Melee is made stronger than gunplay. The guns are made into simple ranged tools while the melee or in this case landing on the enemy is made simple, the guns are given more ammo while for the bullets have I have the player shoot in my game are less in amount and more in power. I wonder if this design of play makes enemies tougher, it does change how effective one strat is from another, it is quite simple to see the differences in play with having it where landing on the enemy is focused on. The strength of the gunplay is tied directly into the style of the level design with having it where landing is made effective because of the time in between landing and shooting. The larger ammo pool means that you can rely on better gun usage between runs, the more enemies between the next drop and the current one the more the gun play changes. The easier to land places have it where enemies are less effective unless they're enemies you can't land on.

 Slow down your character and have a ramp up affect. Have it where the game will have a tapering off affect for how much is ramping up the faster your character is going so in the moment to moment gameplay, the character feels fast. I know this sounds weird to ask you to slow down your characters but my point is, in order for them to feel fast, you need them to earn the speed at hand.

 Take a break from play testing your game if you're getting too good at playing it with having it where the game mechanics/ skill level will start to slack, if that doesn't work and you're on a crunch, change the stats and your skills will start to become less used to how the system is running. With this in mind I had to change some elements to see if I could slow down the gameplay. You need to approach the levels with a different mindset and the best way of doing so is giving yourself a physical or mental handicap with the challenge at hand (mental as in change some elements from the original) only when it comes to balance and remember the stats you had so have them in some plain text files or something. After doing a couple test back to back even with doing changes to the gravity slightly that said experience made it where you start to get used to it again as well. At this point; I don't know, the best other method I could think of making it challenging and able to se...

 When speedrunning Neon White it was addictive; why? The answer is staring at me in the face the whole time ever since I started doing these notes! I'll get to the point right away; dopamine withheld! At first your time is fast and the dopamine hits, most games will kill your dopamine center with constant rewards that fill you with rewards like a mobile game. A dopamine hit that's with held however and kept from getting stale let's you keep going, longer it takes to get a better time over and over again. Now I can understand why fighting games get people; people that get dopamine rewards from training while here players getting dopamine and even community tools showing you red times as the "oof" similar to Dark Souls having the two, "You died" words pop up on the screen whenever you die. This is insanely smart by the community and how it's designed. Now as of games that encourage you to speedrun being built around the going fast element, by having th...